Whisper of the Wind
by Betz88
Summary: Gregory House is an old man who has buried himself in obscurity after a traumatic incident. His self worth is at an all-time low, and life seems hardly worth living. This story is about perpetuation of life and the way the fates conspire to make it so.
1. Chapter 1

"WHISPER OF THE WIND"

"WHISPER OF THE WIND"

Betz88

_AUTHOR'S NOTE: _ This is a story of life and death, loss and gain. It's a test of faith and the power of perseverance. It's a statement that love … all kinds … has the power to move the world, and it questions whether Gregory House's theory that you can't die with dignity might be held to slight revision.

Everyone leaves behind a part of him/herself, good or bad, to be remembered by future generations; supposing that someone will be a little better tomorrow because we were here today!

These revered characters belong to David Shore, and I borrow them here out of deep respect.

BF, 2008

Chapter 1

"Backtracking"

Mountain View Hospice

Michigan:

January 2, 2026

I didn't want to go to his memorial service because I wasn't sure I could handle it. I would rather have stayed back at the apartment remembering Leather as he was before, and crying myself to sleep. Rather a lousy excuse for someone who has always prided herself on being a tough cookie, huh? So much for the stiff upper lip. In a moment of weakness I'd allowed Billy to talk me into going with him and Whit so they wouldn't have to stand beside that plain, simple casket alone, but I regretted it immediately because I knew they wouldn't be alone at all. There were many others who cared about that brave, angry man. He had touched many lives during his Earthly journey.

That's how it happened that night when we met the others behind the mansion, all of us in casual attire because that's the way Leather would have wanted it. We walked into the glade together. My parents were waiting, and we moved quietly along the path. Whit had organ music playing in the background, and I thought at the time how he would have scoffed at the sentimental stuff if he'd had to be there in person.

Leather would have preferred a New Orleans jazz piano.

Reflecting back now, I've learned perspective and the infinite wisdom of 20/20 hindsight. But the night of Leather's gathering, all I was aware of was my own sorrow and how, at any cost, I must hide those feelings from Billy, who'd been so kind and patient for so long.

That night, however, my thoughts were not in Lansing, Michigan. They were somewhere else on another plane of existence with that beautiful and unique silver-haired man. I only knew he was gone from my life forever. Leather was gone, and I had to come to grips with strong emotions and the permanent realization that the only person I'd ever truly loved was lying cold and dead in front of me.

By my side, Billy Travis and his brother, Whit; Lisa Cuddy Rothberg of Syracuse, New York; Allison Cameron Noble, Atlanta; Robert Chase, Head of Internal Medicine, PPTH; and Eric Foreman, Assistant Dean of Medicine at PPTH, stood very stiff and very silent. In the background, Dr. Strange stood like a sentinel among the trees.

Just behind them, my parents hung back. Mom, in her power wheelchair, was closely flanked by my Dad, always protective, always watchful. They knew the whole story now, and were as astounded as I had been at first. But they were there mostly in support of their daughter, who had an astonishing story to tell, even though they had been long-ago friends of Leather's.

When I looked around at some of the gathered faces, I could see wetness glistening in Billy's eyes, and in Whit's and Lisa's and Allison's. The other men appeared calm, but they were moved as well. My hand gripped Billy's so tightly that my fingernails must have dug ruts in his palm. He never moved, so I guess his emotions, though not on the same level as my own, were just as strong. I'd always known there was a strange closeness between him and Whit and Leather that took me a long time to understand.

A first-year med student learns early on to mind her own business and keep a tight lid on things during that vital initial learning experience. I guess that was the reason I never really asked them exactly what was going on until they volunteered the information. When that happened, I was already "gone with the wind" … sort of.

If you will be patient with me, I'll tell you the whole story. Believe me, it's not the way you've heard it over the years. It was much more complicated. Even after all the time that's passed, I can hardly believe some of this stuff myself.

I can assure you though, I didn't earn my position as Director of Mountain View Hospice and Rehab Center by practicing emotional chess, and I'm sure the whole thing, after I had so long to reflect on it, had everything to do with my becoming the person I am today. I had some very large shoes to fill. I was touched by a miracle, or something non-religiously close to it, and I still feel transfigured by the way it finally played out.

If there is a "Plateau", as Leather said, then I know he waits for me there with his friend Whitey. I've been content with that.

I was born longer ago than I care to admit, in one of those obscure little Pennsylvania Dutch farming communities scattered along the banks of the Susquehanna River. Even if I mention the name of the place, you wouldn't recognize it anyway, so why bother, right? I spent my earliest years tossing grain to ducks and chickens, herding and milking cows, currying horses and bouncing around the fields on dad's John Deere tractor.

The only time I ever managed to get a glimpse of the "big city" was when I had to go along with mom and dad to Harrisburg when mom had her doctor appointments. Some of the doctor stuff was scary to me then. I was barely big enough to be allowed in the same room with some of the treatments they did on my mom.

Even back then I knew I wanted to become a big-time doctor someday. I wanted to heal people and watch them get out of bed and walk around again and all that wonderful stuff. I saw doctors as heroes and miracle workers because of what they did for my mom, and I wanted to be one of those as well.

I had no idea of the drudgery and bone wearying pressure of the work, or the downright misery and sleeplessness involved in the long years of study in order to learn the ancient profession. I saw prestige and glamour, and I wanted some of that for myself too, rather than the uncomfortable sensation of hayseeds chafing beneath my dirty tee shirts, and hands blistered by farm work.

As mom's condition deteriorated, she had some problems that puzzled her doctors in Harrisburg. That's when she was referred to Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital in New Jersey. A team led by diagnostician Dr. Gregory House and oncologist Dr. James Wilson became more than just a pair of names on an appointment slip.

We drove there on the god-awful Pennsylvania potholed roads … in a car that ran on gasoline!

Dad and I sat with mom in the crowded corridor outside one of the examination rooms until the famous Dr. House could get to us. He turned out to be one of the tallest men I had ever seen in my short life, and one of the most frightening. He acted like he didn't want to be bothered with us. He towered over me like a skyscraper over a dollhouse, and looked down at me sternly with a pair of hard blue eyes that pinned me to the wall and made me feel about two inches high.

He squinted at me for about two seconds and then ordered me out of the examination room to cower alone on a straight-backed chair in the corridor. Something about: "too young".

I sat in childish anger, and thought nasty thoughts about him for the next fifteen minutes while he turned his formidable attention on my mother. I was not the center ring in this circus, and as an only child, I was a little put out. In more ways than one!

I sat hunched on that uncomfortable chair at the end of the hallway and wished Dr. House would break his leg … and other angry kid stuff. At the time it meant little to me that his diagnostic genius probably added years to my mom's life that day. When he walked out of the exam room at last and approached the place where I was sitting, I was ashamed of myself. I had wished him pain, but he already had it.

Dr. House walked with a cane when he came over to lower himself by my side with a grunt. I could not look him in the eyes. He explained to me that he had not wished to be harsh, but he needed to examine my mother thoroughly while only my father was present. He told me stop acting like a baby and be strong, because my mother was going to need me. She was going to get better. Promise! Right hand up, and all that …

When he limped slowly away after taking time to speak to me, I looked after him in awe. Never had a bad guy turned into a superhero in my eyes in such a short span of time. I hoped that whatever had happened to his hurt leg would get better soon.

Childish wishful thinking.

We stayed overnight, and the next day we met the handsome Dr. Wilson. He and Dr. House came into the room together. They smiled at mom and me and shook hands with my father. And then they took over my mother's treatment, which was an ongoing thing that stretched out over the next few years.

Dr. Wilson literally swept me off my silly, awkward little-girl feet the first time I saw him. He had the twinklingest huge brown eyes, the moppiest brown hair, the highest cheekbones and the most flawless skin of any man I had ever seen in my entire life.

Dr. Wilson's voice was soft as the touch of a breeze, and as gentle. Just like Prince Charming.

My breath hitched up in my throat until I was absolutely tongue-tied and inarticulate and slack-jawed and all that _other_ silly little-girl stuff … just because I'd been smiled at by the most beautiful man in the world. I was in love right then and there, and later I cut his photograph out of the hospital's staff-information pamphlet and carried it around with me for the whole year of sixth grade.

Over the remainder of that summer, mom did get better. She left her wheelchair and began to walk again. We continued to travel back and forth once a month to Princeton, New Jersey to see Dr. House and Dr. Wilson. I worshipped them. I never forgot them.

After a time, Dr. House's disability faded from my mind and I forgot about it. He and Dr. Wilson were my forever-heroes. I would read about them and cut their photographs out of newspapers and magazines and follow the accumulating evidence of their spreading influence in the field of medicine. I would brag to my friends that I knew them, but my friends didn't care one way or another. It wasn't as though I had a casual acquaintance with Beyonce … or Justin Timberlake.

Nobody else in my circle gave a crap about a couple of boring old doctors. But I knew, even then, that my future was etched in stone. I wanted to be such a doctor and perform miracles like my heroes Gregory House and James Wilson. Oh yeah, man! Sometime in the future, perhaps I too would save the life of someone's mother.

Mom and dad stayed in touch with Dr. House and Dr. Wilson over the years, and still drove back to Princeton for annual checkups, trips upon which I didn't usually accompany them. I only met Dr. House one other time after that. When I did, he treated me almost like a grownup, and I basked in the recognition. He was such a good doctor, and I credited him and Dr. Wilson with helping my mother when no one else was able.

Many years later when it came time for me to enroll in college, I knew I would have to work my way through. I aced four years at Bucknell University and was eager to begin medical school. I was ready for the world and hoped the world was ready for me.

As it had been in college, I knew I would have to bust my butt if I hoped to get through the prestigious University of Michigan Med School. I could do it. I had my inspiration in the form of a dog-eared old black and white photograph of Drs. House and Wilson that I kept near me on the bureau beside my bed. Their memories in my mind's eye had dimmed with passing years, but they had saved my mom, and I would repay them if I could by passing the favor along.

The summer after I graduated from Bucknell, I made myself absolutely indispensable to dad on the farm. God it was horrible!

I embarked on my medical mission during my summer downtime by sweating out the months waiting for an acceptance letter from that prestigious university in Michigan. Keeping up with academia would entail much more than an aptitude for answering a multitude of specialized trivia questions. The whole concept left me breathless sometimes, just thinking about it.

Those were the times I would go to my room, listen to music on my brand new Zai-Zo and stare eyeball-to-eyeball at the faded old photo of Drs. House and Wilson and tell them silently and fervently about all the fascinating things I wanted to do with my future. They would look back at me with those compelling expressions on their faces, and agree in some measure that they were there for me whenever I needed them to be.

I wanted to go where they had gone and do the things they had done. Nothing less would ever be good enough. Their faces told me they agreed.

Then a minor miracle occurred. A plump letter came by snail-mail one warm afternoon, welcoming me to the medical school at the University of Michigan … and I was on my way.

I had been accepted by the school of my choice.

Me!

#

6


	2. Chapter 2

- Chapter 2 –

"Whisper of the Wind"

Chapter 2

"Smoky Eyes"

September 2024:

I first ran into Leather … and I mean _literally_ … while I was in the reference library the first day I was on campus at Michigan. I'd heard they were looking for someone to work in the renovated basement records section. They called it "The Spider Banks" because the layout closely resembled the body of a spider … or so I'd heard. My job would be to go through all the antique files, putting them into slipcases for preservation. I was good at organization, and the job had no demands to it other than patience and persistence to make sure everything was filed into its proper place and cross-referenced correctly.

The library itself was cavernous. Twenty-four concrete steps up to the first landing, ten more to the wide veranda and front door. An elevator for heavier materials and the disabled was built into the south wall. Immense concrete columns lined themselves up along the colonnade. Far above my head, they made me feel as though I were passing through a cadre of giants guarding the domain of some omnipotent power that radiated from within.

Once inside the heavy oak door I felt lost and alone in a crowd. The room was dimly lit, its walls, dark oak like the front door, and lined with glass cases. Other glass cases were freestanding in the open spaces on the dark marble floor. Each case, indirectly lit from above, held strange antique medical accouterments of such diversity as to stagger the imagination and confound the brain. The only other place I knew of to house such treasures was the Smithsonian in Washington, D. C.

The place was teeming with people wandering about at random, shoe soles screeching on the polished marble, most of them not talking, but concentrating on the displays; some whispering or conversing in hushed tones. Some simply stood rooted and stared at the mysterious artifacts in the airtight cases, speculating on uses and origins of the old medical equipment they saw resting there. None of it was labeled, and I wondered why.

On the second floor mezzanine high overhead were rows on rows of medical, science, history and other leather-bound volumes whose titles must have spanned at least two centuries. I had heard about this place from the time I was a child, but had no concept of its scope or vast capacity. The shelves were stacked to the rafters and accessible by metal ladders, which glided on tracks set into the ceiling and the floor. It was like looking up a stairway that led to the moon.

I walked around with my mouth open, intensely curious, but very conscious of the fact that I was also expected to meet a man named William Travis in exactly fifteen minutes. I had been told he was African American, tall and muscular, who still insisted on wearing his hair in "cornrows", a style which was long out of fashion. I wasn't sure I even knew what cornrows were, but had been ashamed to ask.

As I looked around the place, I observed at least twenty dark-skinned men, all of them with short hair … or none. I was about to enter his code into my Zai-Zo and track his location. However, as I stood speculating, hunched and confused, one man clad totally in hospital whites, broke away from all the others and headed in my direction. I tilted my head and forced a smile as he approached me obliquely from across the room. I slipped the Zai-Zo module quickly back into my pocket.

Aha! Cornrows! Long, meticulously woven braids. Wow! They consisted of scores of mid-length pigtails plaited Medusa-like with wooden beads that clacked with a pleasant sound as he moved. I was fascinated. He was well into middle age, and built like a human mountain. There were a few strands of pure white in the black hair, and his short, precisely trimmed beard and mustache were quite becoming in salt and pepper. His skin was so dark that it seemed to radiate steamy highlights, and the black eyes were merry and filled with the sort of subtle humor that made one feel good just to look at him. He walked up to me and held out a huge hand in greeting.

I clasped the hand with my own, and was startled to find that my fingers were completely enveloped by his gentle grasp. "Lynn Gresham, I presume," he said in a deep, strong baritone voice.

From my five-foot-six-inch height, I felt as though I were looking up a steep slope of the Tibetan Himalayas. He was tall! "Dr. Travis?"

His laughter thundered down like an echo from that great height. "Billy," he said. "This isn't the military, and I'm an R. N., not a doctor." He held a clipboard in his other hand, and he let go of my fingers to rifle through the papers clipped fast to it. "Have you been assigned quarters yet?"

I nodded, a little overwhelmed. "Yes sir. Shelby Hall, second floor-east. I just came from there."

He scribbled briefly. "Very good! And you don't have to call me 'sir' either. I'm here to help you get familiarized with things and take you downstairs to meet the boss. I was told you're interested in being assigned to the archives job."

"Yes si …. Yes. I can call you "Billy' then … right?"

"Right!" He was grinning, already turning on his heel to walk in the opposite direction, skirting clumps of people with fascinated expressions on their faces, all ogling the exhibits. "Come with me," he said. "You'll have plenty of time to take a gander at all this stuff later. You'll even get to work with some of it. The elevator is over this way. We need to go down to the Spider Banks and find Leather."

I frowned, wondering if I had heard him right, and wondering also, why we needed to find leather …

He looked back over his shoulder when he heard my steps hesitate, and his grin widened. "Sorry. I don't mean 'leather' as in shoes and belts and pocketbooks. 'Leather' is the boss-man. He's in charge of the medical archives and he's your new supervisor. He's a sharp cookie and a bit of an iconoclast … but if you listen to what he tells you with an open mind, you'll find he's also a walking treasure of no-nonsense information who's handy to have around. Oh well, you'll see what I mean soon enough."

"Oh. Okay." I hurried to keep up with his long stride, puzzling over who or what I was on my way to meet.

We entered the elevator and he hit the button for sub-level two. My stomach hitched when the floor beneath our feet dropped from under us, and then bottomed out a few seconds later with a jolt that scrunched my knee joints a little closer to my hip joints.

_WHOA!_

"Here we are."

The door clanged, sending echoes like thunder down through the passages. We stepped out. We were standing in a large hub of a room with corridors leading off in eight directions. "Spider Banks," indeed! Complete with all the legs! And the damned elevator came off in the middle of one leg. I could see what appeared to be a row of doors to multiple rooms opening off each leg. Lines of fluorescent lighting dimly illuminated the dark gray area and made the place resemble some kind of underwater panorama waiting patiently for a population of ocean life to arrive. "Step into my parlor," said the spider to the fly! I looked around nervously, already wondering about the wisdom in my choice of part-time jobs. Too much time spent in this dreary environment and I would soon begin to feel like an earthworm!

_Early-worm gets the bird?_

Billy Travis looked around briefly, and walked across to the opposite wall where an enormous stand of bookcases piled full of cardboard boxes lined the otherwise dull, dark and empty space. One by one he peered into the deserted corridors.

"Dammit, he said he'd meet us here at 9:30," Travis groused. Seconds later he yelled, his voice loud and strong, reverberating off the walls and causing me to cover my ears.

"Leather! Where the hell are you?" His voice echoed along the empty space in waves.

Travis shook his head and rolled his eyes, and I had a feeling this was not an isolated occurrence. "He probably has his nose stuck in a book somewhere, or got his head lost in one of the boxes they brought down here from the library.

"He loves old medical files … especially if it's an unsolved case, or something with some kind of mystery to it. I guess I'd better go look for him …"

Billy turned to me and waved a dismissive hand in an impatient clockwise motion. "Take a seat, Gresham, while I go roust his butt from wherever he's farting around. Be back in a couple minutes …"

I stared after the big man for a few seconds, almost ready to follow, and then thought better of it when he disappeared down one of the spider-leg corridors. I could hear him muttering to himself, even from a distance. The echo was that acute. I wandered around the center area absently, poking around in the collection of musty cardboard boxes, lifting flaps and reading names and numbers off the lids and sides. Most of the stuff was coded and I couldn't make heads or tails of it.

_Medical mysteries! Wow!_

I was about to look for a space to clear off and sit down, when my ear caught the sound of someone approaching from another direction than the one Billy had taken. I turned around to look, but there was no one there. I frowned and glanced about. The footsteps continued to echo loudly, but I could see nothing.

The strange sounds reverberating along the empty corridors were unidentifiable and quite misleading. I wondered if the racket I was hearing might be some distant sound echoing off the ceiling. I spun around to turn my attention backward, and just that quickly I collided with another tall male body. My left shoulder rammed heavily against someone else's chest and shoulder with a resounding whack.

Startled out of my wits, I yelped in alarm, heard a grunt of surprise in return and a sharp clacking sound, as though someone had taken a wooden closet dowel and thrown it down on the hard concrete floor. The sounds reverberated with piercing strength.

I cringed and toppled back in the opposite direction, slamming into the wall with my right side, and bounced back to the middle of the corridor. Too late, I saw in the dim light, someone trip and go down hard on the floor behind me. "Oh God, I'm sorry!"

He was … _old_. Sixty-ish, maybe. Blue jeans, sneakers, and a faded dress shirt over an old tee. He had been carrying a stack of papers tucked beneath his arm, but now most of those had spilled away from him and floated to the floor. I gasped. The man who sat on his butt on the unforgiving concrete was _way _old; hair mostly silver, mixed with a few strands of brown. It looked to me as though his hair had been dumped onto his head from the end of a pitchfork. His beard and mustache were whiter, haphazardly trimmed, and he had the bluest eyes I had ever seen in my entire life!

_Smokin'!_

I stared at him, stunned, as he propped himself backward, stiff-armed, against the wall, glaring up at me with a pained look on his face. I saw him shift his right hand and lay it against his thigh. Then I saw him wince beneath his own touch.

"Ow! Damn! Little girl, are you part water buffalo?"

I had hurt him, although I hadn't meant to. I knelt on my knees by his side and looked, mesmerized, into those fathomless eyes. "I'm sorry. Are you okay?" I made no attempt to touch him.

Billy Travis came racing back around the bend of the opposite spider leg and skidded to a halt in front of the two of us. The echoes sounded like a tom tom, and then bacon frying.

"Uhhh … Gresham? Leather? You guys okay?" He too knelt nearby, and I noticed he did not pay much attention to me, but went directly to the older guy and bent to pick up the long wooden rod, which had sailed out of the man's hand. I saw that it was a heavy black walking stick. There had once been flames painted on it, but they were fading and indistinct beneath the smoothly worn grip. Billy handed it across, then reached his arms under the other man's shoulders and lifted him in no-nonsense fashion to his feet. "You okay, Boss?"

I scrambled to my feet and wiped my hands on the seat of my pants to brush off the dust as Travis finished assisting the other man to stand. My God! The older guy was as tall as Billy, and skinny as a rail. He reminded me a little of old Sam Elliot.

Was this "Leather"?

He retrieved the cane and planted it solidly in front of him, leaning slightly until he regained a difficult balance. "Thanks, W. T. My fault! Gotta learn to watch where I'm going … not where I been."

He waggled those eyebrows across at me, teasing, even as he drew a sharp hiss of breath between his teeth. The smoky blue eyes bored into mine, and I was immediately lost in a childish fog of my own imagination. His eyes were haunting in their fathomless depths, and I found myself unable to look away. He must have thought he'd taken up with an idiot. "You okay?" He asked with a frown.

"Uh … Yeah, sure. Sorry …" I was stammering and I knew it, but I found myself tongue-tied, unable to finish a single coherent thought. What _was_ it about this strange man that was tying strands of my gray matter into knots like a snarled fishing line?

I saw them exchange a glance of something I couldn't quite interpret, but whatever it was, it made me uncomfortable. I looked at Billy expectantly and frowned at him, waiting for answers. He grinned. "Well, now that you two have run into each other …"

The older guy was glaring at both of us, and Billy Travis stretched out his hand toward me, then flipped it back. "Leather, this is Lynn Gresham. Gresham, this is … this is Leather!"

He pronounced the name as though he was introducing me to the President of the United States, and I wondered what the heck was up with that …

I nodded, still unable to find my voice.

_His name really is "Leather"! What kind of dumb name is "Leather"?_

"Hello Linda Gresham," Leather said. He was glaring at me.

"Hi."

_Not "Linda", you old fart … "Lynn!"_

But I didn't say it out loud.

"Another articulate female, right Travis?" The remark was spoken half under his breath, and I guess he didn't think I'd caught it. But I did.

I glared back.

_Old Fart!_

"Another insolent male," I stage whispered.

He wasn't expecting a comeback and I saw his eyes appraising me sharply, mouth quirking up at one corner. His body listed suddenly, and if Billy Travis hadn't steadied his arm, I believe he would have gone on his ass yet again.

"Boss?"

Leather removed his arm quickly from Travis's grasp and gathered his dignity around his shoulders like a cloak. "I'm fine, W. T.," he said softly. "I congratulate you on your choice of assistants for this job. Gonna be an interesting semester."

Was he being sarcastic?

Billy's eyebrows went up in surprise, and his weren't the only ones. I looked back and forth between them and caught that little niggle of communication that escaped me the first time and seemed to have done so again.

Leather went on without a missed beat. "Get somebody from Maintenance to send a computer with a table, a work cabinet and some comfortable chairs down here by tomorrow, willya? Oh yeah … my Eames chair and footstool … and some snacks, if

they expect me to spend any time down here! We need to get started on this mess."

"Whatever you say, Boss. I'll get right on it." Billy nodded once to Leather and once to me. He pulled his clipboard from beneath his arm where it had been pinned throughout the snark routine and scribbled more of his own private shorthand on it.

Satisfied, he parlayed a glance from Leather to me and back again one more time. He then pivoted on his heel and strode to the elevator. Shortly we heard it hum upward with all the clicks and reverberations it entailed.

"Gonna be a doctor, huh?" Leather wasn't even looking at me when he asked the question. He was looking toward the closed elevator doors.

"Huh? Oh … yeah … that's the general idea."

"Uh huh." He wrinkled his nose and scratched at the stubble beneath his chin. "Well, you gotta work your ass off. You know that, right?" His blue eyes leveled directly at mine, and I could feel myself swimming within them again.

"This job is secondary to your GPA," he went on. "Lousy GPA … bye-bye job! I know every professor at this place, and every surgeon and practitioner who runs every practice clinic and operating theatre within a twenty-mile radius. You can't make a move without me knowing about it.

"You asked for this job, and now you got it. The catch is … I come along with it as the grand prize. Soooo … if you make me proud of you, I'll think about returning the favor. Fair exchange, right?"

I frowned, wondering what the hell he was talking about. I had a sneaky feeling he had just delivered some kind of ultimatum, and it was up to me to discover what it was. It was a challenge I thought maybe I could sink my teeth into.

"Why? You think I'm a slacker and a cheat?"

He scrunched one eye closed and squinted at me with the other. "Dunno. You never know about this generation of lazy kids …"

He turned away from me and pointed with the tip of his cane to the pile of papers scattered around the floor of the spider leg. "Your first job is to pick up all the damned pages you knocked out of my hand an' put 'em back in order. If you saw the way I walk, then you know it's about impossible for me to do it myself. I shouldn't have to spell it out that it wouldn't be wise to knock me on my ass again. Ever! Got it?"

I nodded, bent down and began retrieving the papers that lay scattered all around. "I already told you I was sorry …"

"'Sorry' don't hack it …"

"Well, your shoes are too dirty for you to expect me to bow down and kiss 'em …"

He glared at me again while I finished scooping up his papers. I sorted them and held them out to him. He accepted them with his left hand and nodded shortly. "This is gonna be an interesting association."

"You're telling me!" The old guy was sharp; smarter than he looked.

Leather turned with effort and began to move in the direction of the elevator. "Come on! It's time to go. Meet me down here tomorrow after orientation. We got a helluva a lot of work to do."

We rode up side by side, and I couldn't resist asking the question that somehow I knew he'd been expecting. "How on Earth did you ever come by the name of 'Leather'?"

He looked at me with another half squint, jutted out his jaw as though confirming a bet he'd made with himself. He then pursed his lips as though reading my mind. "Because I'm tougher than I look. Are you tougher than _you_ look? If you are, I'm tough enough to find out what you're made of …"

He let the sentence dangle and said no more. An eyebrow lifted for emphasis. He had very effectively told me not to inquire further.

At that moment, I knew I was going to love him. Just like that!

When the lift stopped again at ground level, Leather nodded curtly in farewell and slowly disappeared into the crowd. I watched him as he melted into their midst and disappeared from view.

All the way back to my dorm, I thought about the man with the smoky eyes …

#

13


	3. Chapter 3

- Chapter 3 –

"Whisper of the Wind"

Chapter 3

"Billy Travis"

In my room later that evening, I stood in front of the mirror in my tiny bathroom and gazed at the face that looked appraisingly back at me. I'd never been a raving beauty, but neither did I believe the mirror would have occasion to crack, just by casting my reflection outward for closer scrutiny.

The "straw-stackey" hair I'd inherited from my dad's side of the family was brushed away from my face and pulled back in a French braid that reached to just below my shoulders. Easy to take care of. I hated to fuss. My ears were small and set close to my head, and my eyebrows were somewhat upswept at the ends. Mom used to tell me I looked like a pixie. My eyes were somewhere between light brown and green, and as I stared at my own image in reverse, I wondered how I might look if I had eyes like Leather's … the color of the sky in summer.

In that instant I felt silly and embarrassed at such a flight into fancy, and I flicked off the light with a muffled breath of nervous laughter. There I'd stood staring stupidly at my own reflection and seriously considering what physical attributes I possessed which might attract the attention of a sad, lonely man who was probably older than my parents, and with whom I had been acquainted for all of three hours.

I walked out of the bathroom, wandered across to the bed and plopped down. The living area at the side of the room opposite this one was still unoccupied. No dorm mate. I wondered if I had bad breath or something.

Here I sat, daydreaming about inconsequential trivia when tomorrow was supposed to be the biggest day of my life. I was standing on the threshold of a life-long dream and fantasizing whether I might be attractive to some decrepit old dude who could barely walk.

But damn! Leather was a bold thinker with a sort of melancholy manner about him and a deep sense of mystery. He had a sharp tongue in his head that delighted my sense of the ridiculous, but also a quiet vulnerability that was somehow endearing.

_Oh …Stop this!_

I stood up with a sigh toward the dramatic, determined to get my mind off such idiocy, and glanced around my room with the nervous fidgets. My first day of orientation was staring me in the face tomorrow, and I wanted to be ready for it. I had equipment to unpack, clothing to put away and my Zai-Zo to set up, and here I sat, wasting time.

Once I got started it only took part of an hour, and my little space began to look, if not terrific, then at least livable.

There were plenty of stashy places for books and charts and lab coats and the brand new stethoscope I would be issued in the morning. That … and all the necessary medical accouterments I would be required to keep with me at all times in my long and winding path to becoming a real, card-carrying, pill-prescribing Doctor of Medicine!

Looking around me, I felt satisfied with the way the room had come together, and suddenly my stomach reminded me that I was hungry. I hadn't eaten a thing all day since I'd piled off the plane and taxied to the Student Union Office for dormitory assignment.

A pack of peanut M & M's doesn't go very far nutritionally. Determination grabbed me suddenly and I got out of there. Stashed my Zai-Zo in my pocket, ran down the steps to the first floor and headed for the big front door.

The cafeteria was centrally located on campus, or so said the pamphlet in my pocket. I headed in the appropriate direction. I knew I'd missed the regular dinner hour, so if I wanted anything to eat tonight, I'd better hurry on over there in time to join second-shift break and check out the leftovers.

The "Caff" wasn't crowded. The building was a flat, one-story brick-and-mortar thing that looked a lot like a garage for some rich guy's fleet of cars. I headed for one of the front doors. There were three.

It was much too early for third-shift housekeeping, security and maintenance workers. Split-shifting RNs and LPNs were going in and out in a steady stream, which was normal for them, I guess. I took a seat at an isolated table at the rear of the room and hung my jacket on the back of the adjoining chair. There were a few first-year med students like me scattered about, easily identifiable by their wide-eyed uber-geek attention. I didn't know any of them yet.

There was a buzz of conversation hanging in the air over a few of the tables, but nothing I could pinpoint with any clarity. Also like me, these newbies would be reporting to their first hours of orientation very early in the morning, and the hands-on medical education would begin soon thereafter.

There would be very little sitting down around here. Most of the lectures would take place in the teaching hospital while we gained experience by doing. I looked around me, pausing to study some of the eager faces, wondering which ones of them might become my friends … and which ones I would probably never see again.

Some of the people in this room would never make it to graduation; never receive that coveted M. D. The glory seekers would be among the first to go, lacking the personal discipline to hack the pressure and the demands. Others, conversely, would gallantly give it everything they had and still not be good enough to make the grade.

Some would be forced to drop out due to economic or other reasons. Worst of all, some would make careless mistakes that would jeopardize a patient, or bring someone very close to death. The resulting backlash and shame could end a career before it got a good start. Fate was not kind in this exacting profession, and one such mistake was always one too many.

Sometimes that same fate extracted a terrible price from those seeking to skate by with a minimum of effort. Medical schools needed the very best there was, and it took a special kind of person to make the grade. I was confident that I was one of those who had this special gift, but I also knew not to become complacent, and I would have to work my butt off, like Leather had said, with concentrated attention to detail so I would not become one of those who took a life before its time.

I got up from the table and went through the food line, making myself a small salad, a sandwich, and spooning out a bowl of mixed fruit. I chose water to drink, placed everything on a tray along with napkin and cutlery and went back to the table. I was smiling to myself when I sat down, thinking of the two men from a long time ago who were jointly responsible for my choice of career.

Dr. Gregory House and Dr. James Wilson, the two doctors who had kept my mother reasonably active, though living with Multiple Sclerosis, had my full and thorough respect and admiration. I still had the dog-eared black and white photograph of the two of them in a new 8 x 10 frame, which stood in a place of honor on my dresser in my room. I had the same photo stored on my Zai-Zo, and sometimes I looked at it just … well … just _because! _They'd both been a lot younger when the photo was taken, and they were standing together grinning at each other as though sharing a private joke. You had to be a complete grouch to look at that stunning photograph without breaking into a smile yourself. I know I did every time I saw it. They represented the caliber of doctor I intended to be someday.

I munched my salad and sandwich and ate my fruit in silence, not looking up, still deep in the recurring fantasy. When I finally did pull myself out of the fog, however, I soon discovered I was not alone, and the face looking down at me with some amusement, was half familiar.

"Mind if I join you?" Asked a deep baritone voice.

"Be my guest!" I told him, and he draped his large frame onto the chair opposite mine. He was too big for the chair, but then I supposed he ran into that problem everywhere he went. He was all knees and elbows, and one large paw almost tipped his cup of black coffee all over the tablecloth. I did not try to suppress a snort of laughter. "Wow! If they modified a picnic table for you to use as a chair, it ought'a be just about right, huh?"

Snappish black eyes glared at me from behind half-closed lids, contemplating whether I was kidding or being an ass. I guess he decided I was kidding, because he grinned widely in response. "So … get busy and put in a requisition for a picnic table, okay, Gresham?"

"I can do that. But don't be surprised if they deliver it here!" We both laughed. "By the way, Billy … thanks a lot for taking off and leaving me in the basement with that growling old fart!"

"Oh yeah … that's the main reason I came over here to join you … so I could apologize."

"Really?"

"Yeah. Did he get under your skin?" Travis looked like he was ready to laugh again.

"Well no, not really, but he lit into me for being part of the 'lazy generation', then dressed me down about working my butt off. He said he was a personal confidante of every medic in the state. I felt like it was some sort of test, but don't ask me what!"

This time Billy Travis did laugh. "He said you'd bitch to me about it."

"Huh? You talked to him again after we left there?"

"Yeah, I talk to Leather all the time. He's my friend, sort of. He doesn't live far from me. He said you'd probably do okay."

"Oh man! Am I supposed to feel all warm and fuzzy about that?"

He peered at me with raised eyebrows and wrinkled nose. The expression on that black face looked very strange for a moment. White teeth and whites of eyes, surrounded by nothing but flawless black skin, might have been scary if the room were a little darker. He shook his head. "Lord!" He exclaimed, "You even _sound_ like him!"

"And I suppose that's a compliment?"

He paused for a moment, taken aback. Blinked. "I dunno. S'pose it was." Then he grinned and tipped his coffee cup in mock salute. "Cheers! You stick with Leather, kid. Listen to what he says. He can teach you to make a difference. You won't be sorry. Just don't patronize him. He'll bite your head off if you do."

I grinned back, lifted my cup to salute his. "I don't see how he could make any difference at anything. He's a weird old man. He's … crippled …"

Billy's face softened and he looked away from me for a moment. "Don't let the lameness fool you. He's had some tragic times in his life, and his health isn't the best anymore, but don't underestimate what he can do, Gresham."

Listening to this man, I was beginning to sense a deep respect and admiration in his voice. Perhaps even love. "You care for him a lot, don't you, Billy?"

"Yeah, I do, and I don't try to hide it. It's because of Leather that I'm where I am today, and I owe him a lot more than I can repay. If it turns out that he likes you … and I already think he does … you can't go wrong. Just don't let him hear you call him an old man. _Or _a 'cripple'. Only person who has a right to say that is him.

"Leather's got the most brilliant mind of anyone I've ever met. His body is failing, and that's a shame, although if I were you, I'd ignore it. You'll live longer. He's a forward thinker. I've seen quite a few progressive academicians try to out-think and out-logic him, and they always came in second best. He says he hates getting into a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent."

I looked at Travis with skepticism, smiling at his words in praise of the mentor he obviously cared for, and becoming more and more interested in spite of my best intentions not to. "I'll take your word for it. He does have nice eyes. There were a couple of times this morning when I thought he was looking straight through me."

Travis took a final sip of coffee and peered at me over the brim of the cup, then set it down and shrugged. "He has that effect on new people sometimes … especially first-year med students … until he figures out what they're made of. Just don't get all … 'girly' … about it. Don't develop a crush on him, for cryin' out loud. Lay off the doe eyes and the open mouth. And don't _ever_ touch him with the idea that you're going to help him physically. That's a sure-fire way to piss him off. If he needs your help, he'll ask for it. Challenge him academically, but don't ever make a move into occupied territory unless you're invited. You'll get used to it."

I wasn't sure if I _wanted_ to get used to it. Billy's words sounded a little intimidating, but I was determined not to blow my chances. I'd retrieved Leather's scattered papers this morning when it was obvious he was unable to do it himself, but I was being warned not to make a practice of such things. Fine.

This job was important to me. I needed the money, and I loved a mystery. Working for Leather, I would have two mysteries from the git-go: putting together old ground-breaking medical cases and chronicling them for posterity, plus the even more intriguing puzzle of figuring out a deeper mystery; Leather himself!

Billy and I bussed our own trays a few minutes after that, just as the place began to fill up with second shift personnel on lunch break. The volume level went up into the million-plus decibel range. I grabbed my jacket from the back of the adjacent chair and we left quickly.

Billy walked along in silence beside me, and I took a moment to study him appraisingly. He was a nursing supervisor, he'd said, and from the look of him, he was at least as old as my dad and maybe a little more. In street clothing he looked like a million others just like him, except for the cornrows. But in his hospital whites, as I had first seen him that morning, his demeanor had been entirely different. He was easy to be around and easy to like, but I wondered what kind of supervisor he was. My best guess warned me that he was a no-nonsense taskmaster and very much a "company man".

Just outside the front door to my building we stopped and prepared to part for the night. I looked at Travis and decided to ask him a question that had been bothering me. "Did you and Leather ever work together?"

He smiled softly and looked at me sideways for a second, as though gauging my reason for asking. Then he nodded. "Yeah, we did … for years … but I don't talk about it much anymore … "

I squinted, puzzled. "Where? Here? And why don't you talk about it?"

"It was back east … a long time ago … before we both ended up here. It's a complicated story, Gresham, and I'm not the one who has the right to tell it."

"Something nasty happened, didn't it? It was something that hurt both of you a lot."

"Why do you say that?" Billy's defenses came up like an invisible wall between us.

"Because he is so brittle … and because he's in _hiding_! If he gets bumped too hard, he'll shatter. A blind man could see it with a cane."

"What?"

"You heard me. Leather is sad and angry and a lot of other stuff I haven't figured out yet. But I will."

Billy scowled and I thought he might be getting a little suspicious of me. "Don't do anything to hurt him. Just … don't! Like I said before, let him take the lead. There is no way he will ever allow you to pick his brain if he doesn't want you to. Give him time to trust you before you begin to twist the knife in his back …"

"Billy, I wouldn't do that. He is too … fragile. Even if he says he's tougher than he looks …"

"He's not fragile. You couldn't be more wrong about that!"

"And that means you know the whole story, right?"

"Yes I do. But like I told you … it's not mine to tell. If he ever wants you to know, he'll tell you himself. Please don't push him." Billy shrugged and turned to leave. "I won't let him be hurt again."

"You must not have a very high opinion of me, Billy, but that's okay. I guess I'll see you tomorrow then. Just know that I'd never do anything to harm either one of you." I turned and sprinted up the front steps.

Behind me I could feel the air weighing down with the heaviness of his consternation.

_Damn! Now how did I manage to get myself into that?_

#

20


	4. Chapter 4

- Chapter 4 –

"Whisper of the Wind"

Chapter 4

"Blank Slate"

October 2024:

"Mountain View".

Not a very original name. Nothing that would impress anyone who was looking for something catchy. No surface hi-tech and not really state-of-the-art.

Not at first glance. Not unless you looked under the top veneer of nonchalance and quiet casualness. The latest in medical technology was there all right, and being used by the staff every moment of every day. But the hype was minimized and the pace was relaxed.

Doctors walked about in casual clothing: open-necked shirts and comfortable slacks. Not a lab coat in sight. Nursing staff wore tee shirts and jeans, as did everyone on the support staff. A lot of funny looking people worked in the labs at the lowest level. Some of them wore no clothing at all …

"Mountain View" was near the mountains.

And there _was_ a view …

The convalescent home-hospice was located in a rural setting … not many of those around anymore. This gargantuan building was not something cut from composite materials by monster machines and slapped together like a giant jigsaw puzzle. It was a huge old edifice: four full stories of brick and mortar, stone and cement, slate and shale, and constructed back in the days when workmanship and pride in one's craft were still paramount. It had a furnace in the basement and solar panels on the roof.

It was peaceful there. It was far removed from the din of traffic and commerce and city bustle, nestled against a forested hillside where it was protected from the icy winds of winter and the unrelenting heat of summer. Its only access was along a narrow road that turned off the highway and followed a winding path through conifers and virgin growth oak and maple trees. Further in, huge old elms and chestnuts spread their leafy branches over the tall roof … like protective giants with their arms around the shoulders of their children. There was no parking lot, but rather a cleared area that was spread with shale, and had accommodations for about a hundred vehicles. The ambulance entrance around back was the only paved area on the property. Employees parked their cars off to the side and out of the way.

The building's many rooms were clean and well tended and painted in pastel colors. Floors were carpeted with Pergo, easily accessible for emergency machinery, as well as gurneys and wheelchairs, walkers and crutches. There was no thumping of heavy footfalls. A dropped tray or knocked-over acrylic drinking glass did not echo through the corridors. Quiet, efficient electric shampooers ran daily.

There were no harsh, bright lights except in the exam and operating rooms, where necessarily bare floors were polished to a high sheen. Policy dictated that the staff never raise their voices except in an emergency. Ever. It echoed in those places, and it upset the patients.

There was no "Muzak" mucking up the air; that bothersome canned music that seemed to seep out of the walls and annoyed more people than it soothed. There were, however, radios in the rooms of those still cognizant of what radios were for. And even some who were not. In the entire hospital, only three television sets could be found. No one seemed to miss them.

Monet prints decorated the dining room walls with swatches of serenity, along with a few Rembrandts and a Currier and Ives or two. Potted plants and cut flowers, season permitting, adorned every communal area. Private rooms, without fail, held photographs of friends and family, whether their owners recognized the faces or not.

Once in awhile therapy dogs visited. Most patients knew what they were for and embraced them. Others did not. It was a gamble worth taking if somewhere a furry body and a cold, wet nose generated a spark that had been missing for years.

On the wall of every room and in every hall and break room and dining room and examination room, there were installed blue lights for emergencies. Only in the most extreme cases were the audible alarms activated. Most of the patients found them frightening. Some did not know what they were and thought the Japanese or the Germans or the Russians were attacking.

And yet, this was not a place of "silence at all costs" regulations. Voices buzzed happily everywhere, and a few patients managed to stay busily occupied by carrying on both sides of a conversation themselves. Others turned blank faces to the walls and picked absently at the strings of their pajamas or robes and drooled down over their chins and onto the oversize bibs fastened around their necks. These individuals were termed "the minimally conscious". Some of them hummed away their waking hours in sub-vocal, uncomprehending monotones.

There were others who made no conversation at all …

No eye contact.

No sound.

Only the breathing. In and out.

The third floor housed such people who had suffered severe trauma to the head or elsewhere, who had never recovered. Hysterical paralysis. Hysterical amnesia. Severed nerves, severe brain injuries. Their bodies stiff, limbs atrophied. If there was minimal brain function, it was not detectable. Their eyes were vacant, faces blank. They were hooked to IVs and feeding tubes and catheters, and monitored around the clock. Those with a modicum of brain function and mobility moved about solemnly in mechanical wheelchairs or walkers. The bedfast were moved about with mechanical lifts. They were immersed in whirlpool baths daily. They were given gentle physical therapy when feasible.

There was a Braille center on this floor; hearing aid lab, ASL room. With instructors.

And there was that wing which housed individuals who had lost it all …

"Hey Jeremy!"

A woman's voice called from the doorway of a private room at the eastern end of the ward. "I need new linens for Whitey's room. Would you get them for me, please? I can't leave him right now."

A moment's pause, and then: "Sure, Shirl. As soon as I finish with Dora. Have you fed him yet?"

"Yeah. Just now. Thanks."

Jeremy Elton, tall, thin, eyes like black diamonds and skin like cast bronze, leaned into the doorframe five minutes later. His arms were laden with light blue sheets and pillowcases and a stack of navy blue scrub-type pajamas with easy-on-easy-off string ties. "Do you think he's in pain?" Jeremy asked politely.

Shirley Appel looked at her colleague over the tops of black-rimmed glasses and smiled briefly, her freckled, light-skinned face non-committal. The body of the man beneath her soothing hands was almost nude. He'd had a smelly accident. Again. She was cleaning him up for the second time this shift. She removed the rubber sheet from beneath his adult diaper and reached for a pair of the blue scrub PJs in Jeremy's hands. "I'm not sure if it could be called 'pain' or not," she said thoughtfully. "But there's something about this time of day that tenses him up. I wish there was a way to know what … if anything … goes on inside his head. His whole body is rigid and his hands have stiffened up again. It has to be painful, I guess … so the answer to your question is probably … 'yes'. If only he could tell us …"

Elton moved across to the opposite side of the tall bed and assisted Shirley as she dressed Whitey in clean clothing and rehooked his feeding tube and catheter. The body of the thin man beneath their touch lay unmindful of their ministrations. His eyes stared straight ahead as though fascinated with some object in the distance, far beyond the walls of the room.

He had been handsome once, but now his face was lined with advancing age and advancing debilitation. He was always in this same state. Seemingly aware, but not. They propped him upright, against a large, thermostatically controlled water pillow, warmed just a little higher than body temperature and configured to his individual body type and build. His hands, swollen and red from Still's disease, lay rigid in his lap. His fever had spiked earlier and the rash had appeared with it. Shirley gave him an injection of Prednisone, soon after feeding him "supper", and his symptoms were slowly abating. He would likely sleep now. She checked his catheter and body monitors quickly and spoke briefly into her Zai-Zo before covering his spare frame with a sheet. She ran her fingers tenderly through his snowy hair, and turned down the room lights for the night.

Appel and Elton walked back to the nurses' station in silence; ready to plug in their Zai-Zos to the PING Console. The files on each of the four patients in their charge would be updated to comp-gen access immediately. They moved quickly to their individual consoles and rechecked the room monitors again.

Dora Carlisle was already asleep. She was the most fortunate of the four. Dora had always been a light sleeper, and the doctors had started her on a nightly dose of Ambien to keep her from hurting herself with restless threshing. It had worked, and now she slept undisturbed. Dora was slowly regaining a small amount of eye movement, which had accelerated slightly over the past few months. She was also beginning to form sounds. If you smiled within her line of vision, she would look directly at you with a very puzzled expression. They had hopes of seeing her emerge from her vegetative state soon, perhaps within the year.

Donald Amson and Willard Meredith down the hall, however, were not so fortunate. Both were dying. Slowly. They shared a room, but were not aware of each other. Their areas were filled with IV stanchions and morphine drips. They were in the kind of life-ending pain that no one could do anything about. Both were under strict DNR orders as their cancers raged, elusive and devastating. Shirley and Jeremy and the other caregivers hoped these patients' misery could stop. Their families were in and out constantly, and were exhausted from the strain of not knowing when it would end.

Whitey, the fourth patient, and everyone's favorite, sat day after day unmoving. He was not ambulatory. Neither was he on a respirator, but his coma was very deep. On the left side of his head, there was a missing section of Temporal and Parietal bones from a depressed skull fracture that had sent slivers of bone into his brain and shut it down. The injury had taken away his intelligence, his profession, and his future.

Whitey's pale face was still handsome and serene, but his dark eyes were vacant, their pupils blown. He sat in his bed staring straight ahead at nothing. The right corner of his mouth sagged a little, and a line of drool hung in a gossamer thread that formed a wet spot on his bib. Shirley smoothed petroleum jelly onto his lower jaw at least twice a day.

Many months ago Whitey had been in intensive care at another hospital for two weeks. He was not expected, at first, to live even through the night. Emergency surgery had successfully removed the bone fragments from his brain, and the surgeons who operated on him stood by, waiting for his valiant heart to cease beating.

It didn't.

Whitey lingered on a respirator, comatose, through the first night, then the second, and the third. His head was shaved, swathed in bandages, his face swollen and darkened with bruising, quite unrecognizable. The rest of his body was marred only with small cuts and abrasions, arms and legs resting relaxed and healthy beneath snow-white linens.

They were certain he would not survive. He was still on a respirator. Breathe in. Breathe out. Transferred to another local hospice, they waited for him to die. Family members and one worried, dark-skinned friend lingered for news of his condition. There was nothing. He was there for three weeks.

Early on a Monday morning, doctors made the decision to disconnect the breathing apparatus. Whitey's family stood by tearfully. His latest brain scans had showed no cortical activity and they were certain he was brain dead.

When the machine was disconnected, he continued to breathe on his own. The doctors were astounded, not sure whether to be exalted or extremely worried over these amazing developments. Something simply _had_ to be going on within his mind!

They monitored him very closely for a few more days. Nothing changed. EEGs showed nothing except a similar pattern. PET scans came up lacking. He did not move, did not acknowledge the presence of anything or anyone. He had no voice.

Whitey was transferred from one nursing home to another over the next few months. There was nothing anyone could do for him. Nursing home staff members worked with his limbs, exercising his arms and legs to stave off the inevitable atrophy. They propped his unresponsive body into a wheelchair and pushed him about the corridors in the hopes of igniting something within that would break through the coma. His family talked to him continuously when they were there. His non-response was wearing them out.

Sometimes he was visited by an African-American man who sat with him for hours on end, shedding tears of despair. Nothing ever came of it. The visits became fewer and fewer and then stopped altogether. It was said that the man had gone away to be alone for a while. Transfers from nursing home to nursing home continued.

Whitey languished. Somewhere in the interim, adult-onset arthritis turned both his hands to stiffened claws. Once a day he would spike a fever, and a pinkish rash would appear on his wrists and arms. A plethora of tests revealed Still's Disease. He was given Ibuprofen at the onset, and then progressed quickly to Prednisone. The symptoms abated after a time, but his hands remained periodically swollen and obviously sore. He must have felt pain, but he had no way to voice it.

Finally, a mysterious stranger emerged into Whitey's life. Shortly afterward, this man arranged for Whitey's transfer to a place called "Mountain View".

When his hair grew back, it was wavy and snow-white, a direct contrast to the medium complexion and dark eyes and eyebrows. Over time, he continued to lose weight he could ill afford to lose while his metabolism readjusted to permanent intravenous feedings. His features sharpened to a stark, classic beauty. His high cheekbones and hollow cheeks gave him the appearance of Patrician aristocracy. He retained the "look" of intelligence in reserve, even though his eyes held no spark and no emotion.

At Mountain View, he was handled like a fragile child. Something about him was very special, thought Shirley Appel, his new Nurse-Attending. One day she began calling him "Whitey", and the name stuck.

He had been at Mountain View for what seemed forever. Everyone there knew who "Whitey" was. For some reason, hope sprang eternal. His intelligent facade persisted, but he possessed nothing to back it up. Everyone who knew of him harbored a strange longing that perhaps one day the barriers would go down, and Whitey would look at someone with recognition.

Both of Whitey's parents were dead now, but he didn't miss them. How could he? Thomas, his only brother, had given up. He finally moved out of the state with his family. He could not continue to carry the burden, and he had a life of his own to live.

Whitey's insurance carried the burden alone now, as far as they knew.

Only on Sunday mornings once a month would Whitey's breathing speed up, his heart rate quicken. A hint of something anticipatory and infinitesimal would ignite far behind his beautiful eyes.

On the first Sunday of each month, a disabled older man began to show up there in a wheelchair. Then on crutches. He was frail. Fragile. Sickly. But an aura of fierce determination enveloped him like a ghostly aura. He spent time at Whitey's bedside and one day ordered a piano for the room. Sometimes the staff would hear him at the little spinet, playing soft and soulful tunes … and talking to Whitey as though there were two people in conversation instead of only one. Once in awhile, deep, gentle masculine laughter would float down the hallway …

… and Shirley Appel would listen, unashamed, with tears in her eyes …

#

26


	5. Chapter 5

"Whisper of the Wind"

Chapter 5

"Learning the Ropes"

September, October 2024

Gresham:

The next couple of weeks are a blur in my memory. Only a few things stand out with any clarity. And those are mostly because of Leather.

I was surprising myself with how rapidly I was learning my craft in the basic hands-on practice of medicine. And I do mean, "practice".

We "practiced", it seemed, twenty-four hours a day. They say a picture is worth a thousand words, and I was getting quite a close-up view of that very old truth. But if a picture was that much better, imagine having the reality spread out before you like a hog on a spit. Med-student in-jokes!

Politically incorrect, I know. These days you have to edit everything that comes out of your mouth, lest you insult somebody who would like to take your head off. But sometimes the bare truth is so much better than the watered-down version. "Hog-on-a-spit" … "slob-on-a-slab" … what difference does it make in the long run?

Talking to Leather in the spider catacombs every evening brought it home even harder. The man did not mince words, or sugar coat anything. He called a spade a spade and a shovel a shovel. He said that one of the biggest mistakes young doctors make is to take a patient at his word.

"They lie!" He grumped. "They lie about how much they eat, how much they booze, and about how much damned medication they take."

Even as he spoke, he was popping pain pills. For his leg, I had no doubt.

"They hand you bullshit about their sex lives and about their professional lives and their obsessions. They hide the truth and keep secrets from their doctors because they don't want their spouses … or whoever … to know about their indiscretions. 'Hump 'em and dump 'em' … you know how it goes …

"Then too, if they don't hide their symptoms, they overblow 'em. They expect their doctors to read their minds and pull miracle cures out of their hats. Every single one of them has his RADAR out in hopes of finding a legitimate reason to file a lawsuit … instant bank account for sports cars and hookers and no work involved on their part. No wonder most doctors wish their patients would just go croak and be done with it!"

Leather scandalized me constantly with his candor, but truth is still truth. I found that I was even agreeing with him most of the time … and wishing that I had his … well, for want of a better word … "balls".

While we dug through ancient files, the maintenance department people had dragged every piece of equipment he had requested down to our grotto. Echoes made us feel like we were in the bell tower of Notre Dame Cathedral. By the time the first week ended, the bare room at the hub had been strategically transformed into a workable office.

Maintenance labored in there with an industrial vacuum cleaner and we felt like we were in a wind tunnel.

We had smooth wooden tables for sorting case histories and old drug lists, a PING Computer in the corner for cataloging and working on file synopses, and a carton of writing implements for drafting and other fine work. We had a case of plasticene-film sleeves for protecting ancient documents, and thick notebooks in which to file them.

The following week, workmen installed a break table and a coffee maker. Somehow we acquired a cupboard filled with Leather's favorite snack foods. Maintenance also plumbed in a sink for us, and installed a refrigerator with thru-the-door water and ice.

One day a group of burly men in white paper coveralls entered a small room just off one of the spider leg corridors. Soon we heard sawing and drilling and the rendering of concrete and brick and cement that sounded as though it was rising from the bowels of the Earth. By the following day, we had a rest room with a stand-up shower. And I was almost deaf.

Leather sat idly by, legs crossed, feet propped on the edge of the old table. He wore a headset that nullified every sound. Our researching and cataloging came to a virtual standstill until they could finish up. Sheets of plastic covered open boxes to keep the dust off the contents. I could not hear myself think. Later that day, Leather moved across the room to an even older, faded yellow Eames lounge chair and repropped his feet on an equally faded footstool. Watching the mushrooming dust with jaundiced eye and a judgmental scowl, he languidly popped pretzel nubs one after another. Soundproofed and smug.

I sat in a black leather chair of my own across from him, drinking bottled water and watching the work in progress with hands over my ears. But Leather … as he sat watching the work in progress … paid me all the attention that a bird pays the fence post it perches on.

"How come they didn't send you a new chair?" I yelled at him through the din.

He squinted at me, much more interested in the chunks of concrete being tossed out of the room into the spider leg. He frowned and pulled off his headset. "What's wrong with this one?"

"Looks like it came over on the Mayflower."

"It did. I came with it." Just that quickly he returned his attention to the spiral of cement dust rising into the heavy air down there …

And that was the end of that discussion. The headset was back in place.

After that week, our work became detailed and exhausting. Leather carried out his end of the initial cataloging with fascinated determination. Once in awhile his perpetual look of melancholy gave way to concentrated interest. He plunked himself in front of the PING and pecked away enthusiastically, to the exclusion of all else.

I found myself watching him more and more, admiring the way his mobile face contorted constantly as he sifted through the old documents and typed up a series of codes. I was amused by the comical way he peered over the lenses of his antique wire-rimmed glasses, forever squaring them on the bridge of his nose with an index finger as he paused to consider something that caught his attention. I could almost see and hear the little wheels turning inside his head …

One by one the large bookcases were moved into the hub on dollies that screeched like the banshees from hell. We filled them with precisely documented notebooks and ordered them transferred, one at a time, down one of the spider legs and into the proper room.

Bang-bang-clank-clank-pin-g-g …

By the end of every one of those long nights, our rear ends were dragging. Leather's gait would turn ponderous, and I wondered if he suffered much pain in the leg, or if it was just the stiffness of advancing age, more pronounced in his case. It bothered me, and sometimes I cringed inwardly with every painful step he took.

Billy Travis had warned me not to pry, and I didn't. Leather never complained, but once in awhile I would see him absently massaging his thigh with the heel of his right hand. I would wonder from what depths he summoned the stamina to keep going.

I saw a lot less of Billy during those days. Classes and rounds and lectures during the day, the archives in the evening, and hitting the books in my room at night, pulling out the notes I'd entered into my Zai-Zo. It all kept me in constant flux without even a few free moments to rub together.

The one time I did run into him, it was very strange. It was in the cafeteria, and it was on a Sunday evening. I had been there exactly one month … and it was the first day of October.

Saturdays and Sundays were my days off, and I usually spent them on the Zai-Zo in my room or hitting the books. This was no exception, but by suppertime I was ravenous. I decided that if I wanted anything at all to eat that day, I should maybe go to the caff and get it before they closed the place up tighter than a drum.

Billy was working second shift and he was on his supper break. I saw him sitting at a table with three other men, all of them nurses, dressed in white scrubs with their I. D.'s displayed prominently on their front pockets. I heard their laughter first. Four heads bobbing. Friends exchanging ward stories and relaxing in the middle of tedious shifts on the floor. I started to walk purposely in the opposite direction, not wanting to intrude.

Then three of the chairs were scraping back, three male bodies rising and making ready to leave. Billy had seen me and raised his hickory log of a forearm into the air and hailed me loudly. "Hey Gresham! Don't go sneakin' off … get over here!"

I changed course reluctantly and approached them. The three shorter ones were poised to move out and return to work, but stopped in their tracks when Billy hollered. I frowned.

Men looking at a woman …

I could almost read their thoughts … and the big arm was still in the air, index finger pointing downward, one at a time, to the tops of their heads. "This is Joe Farmer, this is

Inky Ingram … and this one is Hooter Harpster. Gentlemen, this is Lynn Gresham … Leather's new protégée …"

I found myself the center of a flurry of friendly hoots and catcalls, whistles and exclamations.

"Hoo haw! Leather's 'pigeon', huh?" It was Inky who had spoken, friendly and teasing all at once. "The old man getting under your skin yet?"

I glared at him skeptically. Took my best shot. "All the time," I told him. "But I get under his too."

They all laughed, told me how glad they were to meet me, then excused themselves and left together. I watched the three of them walk across the room, turn and wave at us, and pass, single file, out one of the front doors.

"I'm going over to fill my tray," I told Billy. "Be right back."

He nodded. He had a mouthful of something brown … matched his skin!

I returned with a bowl of clam chowder, a garden salad and a glass of milk. Billy looked at my selections and grinned. "Seafood, rabbit food and cow juice." He remarked. "You sure have strange tastes."

I didn't answer, other than to stare at him scarfing down a huge chunk of shoofly pie and finishing off a chocolate milkshake the size of the Leaning Tower of Pisa.

"Oh really?"

He swiped at his mouth and laid his napkin down. "So … how's it going, Gresham? I hear that things are getting pretty brisk in the land of Medical Doctordom … and in the Spider Banks too."

I laughed at him and dug into the clam chowder. It was delicious. "So far, so good," I said noncommittally. "So how is it going with you, Billy? Check in with Leather today? He was pretty tired when we finished up Friday."

He propped both elbows on the edge of the table and looked across at me. "Talk to Leather on the first Sunday of the month? Never happen. He's not around on the first Sunday. I thought you knew that …"

"No," I said. "Why would I know that? You said I shouldn't quiz him. I keep the conversations mostly to the materials we're working with. Why? Where does he go?"

"Down east …" His reply was hesitant. Low. He knew he'd stumbled into dangerous territory.

"What's down east? _Where _is down east?"

"I have no clue," he hedged, and I knew he was hastily covering up his faux pas. "He … just likes to get away from here every once in awhile. That's all I know. Forget I said anything, Gresham."

His tone had a warning note to it that I didn't understand. And that only added to the mystery of Leather.

I did as Billy asked, and didn't press for further answers, but it set me to thinking. I dug back into my supper and let the subject slide on by. After a short, uncomfortable interval,

He excused himself and left. I watched him buss his tray and walk, stiff-backed; out through the same door his friends had taken earlier.

If he thought that was the end of the subject, he was quite sadly mistaken …

#

31


	6. Chapter 6

"Whisper of the Wind"

Chapter 6

"Nothing But Questions"

It was difficult waking up Monday morning. I'd burned the midnight oil until after 2:00 a.m. Medical vocabulary and illustrations of body parts felt as though they'd been tattooed on the insides of my eyelids. That … and the image of large blue eyes laced with pain that haunted me wherever I went.

I looked for Billy Travis at breakfast, but he wasn't there. I hadn't expected him to be, but I'd skimmed the room anyway. He hadn't got off shift until 11:00 p.m., and as supervisor he still had an hour's worth of night reports to write up after that. I knew it was unlikely for him to be on campus this early, but I'd had to try. How could I find a way to explain what I felt if I didn't know myself? Billy held the only clues.

The conversation I'd had with him yesterday had bothered me more than I wanted to admit. A few questions to satisfy my own curiosity and concern were in order if I was ever to balance logic with emotion.

Walking through the breakfast line, I ended up with a bagel and a cup of hot tea. A few of my first-year classmates were there also, and I hung out with them until it was time to get over to the teaching hospital to begin the day.

As it turned out, there were about fourteen or fifteen of us trit-trotting across campus looking like a herd of Japanese tourists, our stethoscopes around our necks in lieu of cameras or Zai-Zos. I'm sure the upperclassmen who passed us by must have had themselves a good laugh …

The day in academia dragged by slowly and I felt as though everything was passing me by in slow motion. I was easily distracted, and when I was called upon to offer my thoughts on a simple diagnosis, I couldn't get it together. I ended up entertaining the entire class by getting chewed out as a "student unprepared" by the resident in charge of rounds. After that, I just felt miserable for the rest of the afternoon.

I went back to my room before heading down to Spider Country. I couldn't afford to let Leather see me with my lower lip hanging down to my belly button. He would either make a mockery of it or demand to know what the hell was going on.

I unbraided my hair and let it fall loose. Undisciplined, I know, but if Leather had a different appearance to focus on, perhaps he wouldn't notice that his assistant was wandering around lost inside her own head and walking around like a zombie. After that I stepped into the shower as hot as I could stand it and just let myself lean into the titillating spray. Sometimes appearances were everything.

On the nightstand by my bed stood the old black and white photograph of the two doctors from my misty childhood, who'd been responsible for my wanting to become a doctor in the first place. Tall, gaunt, dark-haired Gregory House still grinned at his colleague with that mischievous gleam in his eye, and the handsome-beyond-measure James E. Wilson smiled back. I often wondered what joke they'd been sharing when the photographer snapped that picture. Whatever it was, it must have been a good one. In spite of my insipid mood, I couldn't help smiling at the two of them myself … just like always.

I pulled on a pair of old jeans and a sweatshirt and crushed a baseball cap over my still-damp hair. If I didn't get a move on, I was going to be late … and a ragging-on by Leather for tardiness, I didn't need. Stuffing my Zai-Zo into a back pocket, I headed for the reference library.

I was still part way down the road, walking fast, when I saw Leather. I wasn't the only one who was late. He came up the sidewalk from the parking area; jeans, tee shirt, sneakers … moving quickly, not quite as lame as usual. His gait was unique. When he walked, his cane was on the right side …in his dominant hand. His injured leg was on the right also. I had been told many times that this was not correct, and that it could damage the muscles and tendons in the arm and shoulder of the person who used the implement on the same side as the injury.

He was easy to spot. There was something vaguely familiar about his measured and rickety movements, but I couldn't quite remember where I'd seen something like it before. It was like a tickle at the fringes of my mind, not quite solid enough to recall. It was a small thing, not all that important.

Leather obviously didn't give a damn how he looked. He did it his way and made the action his own. His left arm was an instrument of leverage, and his left hand jerked upward several degrees with every step. Like a counterbalance. It turned his gait into a lurch, but there was also a lopsided grace to it that was way beyond the limits of logic. He covered a lot of ground very quickly that way.

Grace with ripples.

As I watched, he entered the equipment elevator built into the side of the building and slid the door shut. It would take him directly down to the hub of the Spider Banks. I quickened my pace to enter the library in order to catch one of the regular elevators and arrive right behind him.

The day had been warm for the beginning of October, and the grotto was cool. When I walked in from the elevator at the other side, Leather was at the power console, turning up the fluorescent lights, readjusting the dehumidifier. He looked up and saw me and scowled, but made no comment.

He picked his way over to the old Eames chair and flopped into it, lifting his leg gingerly onto the stool. He had his Zai-Zo out, tapping something into it, checking the readout, tapping something else. He saw me watching him and snapped it closed, stuffing it back into his jeans pocket.

I turned my back on him. It was obvious he didn't want to talk. I pulled one of the big storage boxes out from under the table and lifted a stack of old texts, torn and in dire need of repair, onto the smooth wood surface. Silently I began to spread them out and smooth away the dog-eared edges and removed strands of rotted thread from the bindings.

While I worked, I was aware of his eyes upon me, scowling in something like fierce disapproval. It was difficult to work beneath such scrutiny. Finally, after about five minutes of it, I sighed, laid down a sleeve of plasticene sheets and turned my attention across the room. "What's on your mind?" I asked him.

His eyebrows went up immediately, and the frown was replaced by a look of offended innocence. "Nothin' …" He paused a moment, the facial expression transforming into a squint of reconsideration. "Do you have a black eye or something?"

It was my turn to frown. "What?? No … why?"

He shrugged. "Just wondered. I saw a guy last week … tried to hide a shiner under a hat just like that …"

His Zai-Zo warbled. He pulled it out of his pocket and pushed the activator. "Yeah?"

A deep voice spoke a few words: garbled to me, of course. Those things were engineered for privacy. It was Billy, I figured.

"Never mind, W. T.," he said softly. "I'll talk to you later." He snapped the little instrument shut again and jammed it back into his pocket.

"Not a black eye. Washed my hair, didn't have time to braid it again, that's all."

"Oh. Okay. Never mind."

That was the end of the conversation. I was tired and wished the evening was over, but I went back to work. The next time I looked over at him, he was asleep. His cane was propped half against his shoulder and half against the seat of the chair beside him. His right arm hung down awkwardly over the chair arm.

Something wasn't quite right, but I didn't know what.

We did eventually hang it up early. I was beat from my late night studying … and less than glowing day … and Leather's face had taken on a strained look that was a little scary. His eyes were bleak, and the blue had turned to slate grey. The corners of his mouth turned down, lips parted slightly, as though containing a sigh of deep despair.

I pretended to take my time putting all the rejuvenated text pages away in their plasticene sleeves. Actually I was killing time, waiting for him to make the first move. I wondered if his blue mood was a holdover from his weekend "down east".

Finally he sighed and rose from the Eames chair. He walked slowly across to the panel and set it back to night mode. I could hear the turbines deep in the Earth beneath us powering down.

Without a word, only a slight dip of his chin, he made his way to the elevator and stepped inside. "Later." He said as the doors closed.

I used the rest room and washed my hands, then I left also.

I tossed and turned until after midnight again, even though I was bone tired. My thoughts were with Leather, my mind was in turmoil. It suddenly occurred to me to wonder what he did with his time during the day while I was in class or on rounds. Where did he go? What did he do?

I wondered if he might be up on the wards right this minute, talking with Billy Travis …

"W. T." Leather called him that, and I wondered why.

Questions and more questions. Stuff that was absolutely none of my concern. My curiosity was driving me crazy … along with the desire to know more about the man with the smoky eyes.

I wasn't sure of the truth myself, but I had a strange feeling that I was falling in love with an old man who didn't want my attention. Didn't need my concern. I was a very tiny pebble on his very large beach.

I hoped the problem, if that's what it was, would work itself out, one way or another.

Soon!

#

35


	7. Chapter 7

"Whisper of the Wind"

Chapter 7

"Happy Birthday to You!"

Princeton, New Jersey

June 2008

He stood in the doorway between kitchen and living room. Ramrod straight. One hand gripping a doorframe on either side, as though the act of letting go would dislodge a precarious balance. Like he'd go on his ass otherwise.

"Whoa! _What?"_

He was tall. Slender. Well dressed. Shining, neatly trimmed hair gleamed like toasted almonds laced with cinnamon. The skin of his face was ivory smooth. Youngish. One of those fortunate men who would look youthful into his seventies and beyond. Thick dark brows undulated over even darker eyes, and right at the moment they were drawn together in a puzzled frown.

Two weeks before, Dr. Lisa Cuddy, his boss and chief administrator of the hospital where he worked, had booked his friend and colleague, Dr. Gregory House, as keynote speaker at a medical conference at the Best Western Hotel in New York City. It had not set well with the good doctor. But as Cuddy had been telling them both for some time now, she "owned House's ass" … and he_ would _honor the commitment!

Across the room, the second man stood stubbornly behind a leather couch that had seen better days. This man was even taller and more slender than the first, and his appearance was the polar opposite of his companion. His chestnut hair resembled a bird's nest, and the greying scruff on his face looked like one of those metal brushes used for scouring a charcoal grille. He wore blue jeans, blue dress shirt, black sneakers and a dark blue sports jacket, and managed to resemble an unmade bed. He was noticeably older, and slightly faded. But the icy sparks that emanated from the riveting blue eyes lent him the appearance of bold command. The "look" was uncannily aristocratic.

"You heard me. I'm just not gonna drive my car into New York City. I decided. I'm not gonna drive _anything_ into New York City. If you want to play tag with the morons in that town, be my guest … but it won't be me."

"Yesterday you told me you were driving," the younger one insisted. "What changed? It's 5:30 now, and we really should leave …"

James Wilson, M. D. was not upset. Not really. He was used to turnarounds like this from his friend House. Changeable as the weather. A fact of life. But he had called the Volvo dealership only this morning and arranged to get his car picked up here at House's place for a tune up while he and House were away for the weekend. And he had planned to take House out for his birthday Sunday …

House only scowled dourly. And glared. "Changed my mind. You okay with that? I can take the train and a taxi, y'know."

Wilson rolled his eyes and sighed. He dropped his hands away from the doorframe and stepped the rest of the way into the living room. Only two things could be responsible for this abrupt about-face: House was suddenly having second thoughts about making this speech on diagnostics and infectious diseases, and being under close scrutiny onstage at an important medical conference.

It was all about the leg.

In spite of his bluster about always being right, House was usually nervous in the limelight. He was a talented and effective teacher and a dynamic speaker, but almost chokingly uncomfortable with displaying any hint of his disability in front of strangers.

He must be having a bad day, painwise, even though he had revealed no sign of it earlier.

Wilson eyed his friend. Standing nonchalantly behind the couch, House was leaning on it with both hands. To anyone else it was a pose of leisure. To Wilson, it spelled trouble. House was sore and denying it like a killer denies guilt in front of a jury. The idea of voicing his pain to another human being was an admission of defeat to House. He had done it with Wilson only twice in recent years, and never willingly to anyone else. The first time occurred when he was still in the hospital after the surgery that had made him a cripple. The other time was when the Ketamine treatment began to fail. He often whined to get his way, but an actual complaint was not in his makeup.

One did not confront House when he was like this. Wilson shrugged. "Okay, I can drive. No problem." Then he added: "You'll be speaking from behind a podium, you know." He watched the parade of expressions pass across his friend's face, but was not given the satisfaction of a retort. He figured he'd just call the garage on his cell phone and cancel the appointment for the Volvo. He could support his friend best by _not_ supporting him at all. At least not vocally.

Like the Vulcan, Spock: _"There is no pain!"_

There was a long silence, after which Wilson lifted his right hand behind his head to pinch the tense muscles at the side of his neck. "I don't think you can get out of making the trip, House. Cuddy said she still owns your ass from two years ago …"

House snickered and worked his way gingerly around to the front of the couch. Plopped down and used both hands to lift his right leg onto the surface. "How damn 'grateful' can I be? So she lied for me … big deal. Doesn't mean she can hold me hostage for the rest of my friggin' life! Does that mean you're driving?" He looked up from beneath bushy brows until Wilson could not help but grin.

"Yeah, I'm driving. When do you want to leave?"

"Whenever you're ready. You see my bag over there by the door? I'll even let you drag it out to your car for me. And you can drive my car around and put it in the garage if you want to. I'm in a generous mood."

They stood on the sidewalk looking thunderstruck. Wilson had the handle of House's wheeled overnighter still in his hand, and his own suitcase in the other. House was still on the stoop right behind him.

The Volvo sedan was gone. The space behind Gregg's old Dodge Dynasty was empty.

Wilson thought blankly about the car keys still in his suit pocket. The boys at the Volvo garage knew where he kept the extra keys … in a magnetic box under the front fender … and they had used them to remove his car to the shop for its pre-arranged maintenance check. He turned around slowly, almost afraid to hear the sarcastic remarks that would fall from the lips of the other man.

But House was silent. His eyes said it all.

Wilson set both pieces of luggage down and propped his hands on his hips. "They already took my car …"

"No shit!" House shifted his weight off his bum leg and hesitated a moment. "Then we take mine. Vince Crane and his boys came and got it a month ago. They 'Moparred" the fuck out of it for me. It has a full tank and only 150,000 on the odometer. You can drive. I still aint gonna …"

Wilson sighed. "Well, get in then, 'til I put our luggage in the trunk. You got the keys? Your insurance paid up? It's not gonna die on the road or anything, is it?"

House dipped into his jeans pocket and dug out the keys to the old blue-grey car. "Here. Yes … yes … and no. These old Chrysler beaters are like old soldiers … they don't die, they just fade away …"

"That's … really reassuring, House …" Wilson took the keys his friend held out to him and trundled their suitcases to the back of the car. As he lifted the trunk lid, he felt the passenger side go down as House's weight settled in. He lowered the lid and opened the driver's side door. House was in his seat fiddling with the ancient webbed seatbelt.

Wilson turned the key in the ignition and was surprised that the old engine turned over and ran smoothly with a quiet purr. Even the interior was clean; not filled with piles of discarded fast-food containers or empty beer cans as he had expected. He sighed.

Friday night traffic in Princeton was fierce, but they headed out of town and aimed for Route 1 north. "Fasten your seat belt, House. This crate is too old for air bags, and I want you buckled in tight." Wilson spoke without taking his eyes off the road.

Across from him, House drew in a deep and exaggerated breath and thrust both thumbs beneath the dark blue strap that lay fastened across his chest. "I _am_ fastened in," he whined. I feel like I'm in a straight jacket. You sure picked a shitty time to send your bucket of bolts to the shop for an oil change." He had pushed his seat backward as far as it would go in order to give himself all the legroom possible.

"If you recall," Wilson replied calmly, "yesterday it didn't matter. You told me you were going to do the driving."

"Yeah … well … yesterday my leg wasn't all fucked up."

"You might have said something …" Wilson' hands tightened on the wheel.

"It was none of your business."

"Your welfare is always my business."

"Humph."

House had taken a Vicodin as they pulled away from the curb back at his place. Now he reached for another, tipping the vial into his hand, not bothering to conceal the fact that he hurt. He took the medication dry as usual, stuffed the vial into his jacket pocket and leaned his head back into the seat rest. His eyes went closed and so did the conversation.

Next week was House's birthday. Wilson had thought about the two of them taking in a Broadway matinee on Monday, and maybe lunch at the Stage Delicatessen before driving home. Now he was not so sure. He would have to play it by ear. If his friend's bad leg was acting up, he would probably want to get out of there on Sunday as soon as his talk was over. Wilson was glad he had one small remembrance already in his jacket pocket.

Some Birthday!

#

39


	8. Chapter 8

"Whisper of the Wind"

Chapter 8

"Emotional Coma"

Wilson tipped the bellhop generously after he had delivered their luggage and with painstaking formality, showed them all the amenities of their shared room. The young man then bowed from the waist, turned, and left them to their own devices.

Gregory House was already sprawled on one of the huge beds with both arms flung out to his sides. His suit coat gaped open and the material between the buttonholes of his shirt was stretched to the point that the pink skin of his belly showed through. Eyes closed in what seemed to be luxurious abandon, the long fingers of his left hand crept into one of the pockets of his coat and pulled out the vial of meds. He popped the lid with his thumb, popped a single Vicodin and popped the lid back on.

Across the room, James Wilson had his suitcase open on the bed and was arranging his extra clothing carefully on the counterpane. Socks, underwear, tee shirts, two white packaged dress shirts, two neckties, a brown sport coat and two pairs of dark slacks were quickly arranged like military cadets in line with the bedspread's pattern. He paused after placing a pair of shining brown oxfords on the floor by the bed and looked up when he heard his friend sigh with a tinge of discomfort.

House was watching him, jaw jutted to one side, blue eyes narrowed. "Ten-n – _hut!"_ He

teased in a guttural tone. "Shoes! Socks! For-ward … _harch!!"_

Wilson grimaced. "Very funny!" He grumbled. "Wouldn't hurt for you to put your extra clothing away too … or at least get them out of your suitcase and I'll put them in one of the dresser drawers so they don't get all … wrinkly."

House snorted in disdain. "Blue jeans look the same wherever you stick 'em," he scoffed. "All I have to do is pull 'em up over my butt, and presto! Instant ironing board. Same with the tee shirts. I didn't pack any ties. Hate 'em. Even that grungy red thing you got me in rehab. Socks are fine where they are … and so's all my sexy negligee …"

House made no move to get off the bed. Instead, he inched himself around until he was turned in the correct position, head on the pillow, feet on the mattress. He gripped his cane tightly against his left side with fingers clenched around it. Wilson noticed he had not bothered to take off his shoes.

"Still hurt?" He asked.

House glared. "Don't worry about it!"

"Not worried," Wilson retorted. "Like worrying about a pit bull. Makes about as much sense." He continued to fuss with his clothing, opening and closing drawers. When he had finished with his own, he pulled House's weekender across and unzipped the zipper.

House lay on the bed with an elbow cocked across his face. Wilson got on with it and made no comment.

When it was 8:30 p.m., Wilson sat down carefully on the edge of House's bed. The only reaction was a quick indrawn breath. Exasperated, Wilson decided it was time to take the "pit bull" by the horns.

"I'm hungry," he said encouragingly. "What do you say we go downstairs and see what they have for supper?"

The arm came off House's face. He frowned. "Not hungry," he said. "If you want to go, go ahead. I'm not getting up." The arm returned to its former position.

Wilson paused for a minute. House had not eaten lunch at work. He'd spent the time in his office, catnapping with his feet propped up on his desk. He had not eaten anything at home after work either.

He had adamantly refused to drive his car to the city as previously arranged, and had not offered a valid reason. He was definitely hurting. Wilson waited for him to come clean, but he remained obstinately tight-lipped. At the time they'd climbed into the Dynasty to set out on the trip, House still had not eaten. He was probably afraid of throwing up anything he put on his stomach. He'd ridden all the way to Manhattan with his head laid back on the seat and his right hand worrying his thigh. Wilson was many things, but he wasn't blind.

It was time to piss or get off the pot!

Wilson sighed and stood up, standing for a moment beside the bed, looking down. House had not moved for over two hours. "Give me a number on the pain scale," Wilson said finally. "I don't know who the hell you think you're fooling …"

There was no answer.

"I have my kit with me, House," Wilson pressed softly. "Do you need an injection?"

The elbow lowered again and pain-filled blue eyes glared upward menacingly. "You just can't mind your own fucking business, can you?"

"No, not when it comes to this. Take off your shirt and jacket … and give me a goddamned number!"

House sighed. "Six … maybe seven. It hasn't been this bad in months." Reluctantly he hefted himself and began to remove jacket and shirt obediently. No more argument than this? It was bad.

"When did it start?"

"Two nights ago."

Wilson moved to the dresser and opened a drawer. The small case with an array of sterile packets and a row of morphine vials lay inside with a length of rubber strapping and a small hypodermic. He brought it to the bed and sat back down on the edge with the case in his hand. Removing the rubber, he looped it around House's upper arm and tied it securely.

He tore open a square of gauze moistened with alcohol and rubbed it vigorously at the bend of House's elbow. One of the little vials inserted into the end of the hypodermic shot a thin stream of the powerful drug into the air. Wilson snapped the tip twice. "Ready?"

"Yeah."

A quick insertion to the vein, a moment's pause, and it was done. Wilson withdrew the needle and laid another square of gauze over the little wound, untied the rubber band and bent House's elbow until his upper arm rested against his forearm. "Tell me when it eases off," he said.

House nodded once and sighed deeply. "Thanks." He was already drowsy.

"Sure. You okay?"

"Yeah … but I'm still not getting up."

Wilson chuckled and shook his head. "Rest," he said. I'll call for room service. Maybe you can handle some hot tea. Some crackers …"

House made a face. "Blick! Not unless you want to wear it."

Wilson chuckled. He reached for the counterpane from his own bed and prepared to cover House with it. The blue eyes were glazing over. The drug was taking effect. "Mother … my how you've changed …" He was fading away.

Wilson removed House's sneakers, socks and blue jeans with care. He pulled the counterpane across his friend's slender body and tucked it in. It was like tucking in a three-year-old.

He turned down the lighting and went into the stark, white, porcelain bathroom where he stood under shower water as hot as he could stand it for fifteen minutes. When he returned, he was wearing one of the hotel's heavy terry cloth bathrobes. It was June, but he was cold, and he knew exactly why that was …

Wilson called room service and ordered a medium mushroom pizza with extra cheese and a lite beer. When they arrived, he paid for it and pulled a chair close to House's bedside.

He ate one piece of pizza and drank two swallows of beer. He put the rest in the trash. He would monitor the other doctor through the night.

A shitload of responsibility was included when you injected morphine outside a hospital setting, and Wilson was willing to do whatever it took.

House had a talk to give on Sunday, and Wilson vowed that his friend would feel well enough to make it a good one …

#

43


	9. Chapter 9

"Whisper of the Wind"

Chapter 9

"Biology 101"

November 2024:

I was in trouble. Over my head.

First day, first hour, first minute … it was fate conspiring to run me into the ground; catch me when I wasn't looking. Put my running lights out … or at least cause a short circuit that made them blink on and off like an old theater marquee …

Something inside me went belly up. And I was dead in the water.

That's what happened the second I met Leather; the day I ran smack-dab into him and knocked him silly, down deep in the catacombs. He allowed Billy Travis to pick him off the floor, and then he looked at me with that … _"look"_ … and I was a goner.

I fought it.

I did. Honest to God! I denied it; I scoffed at myself for even thinking such a thing. I counted up the reasons why it was a stupid idea and why it was only a schoolgirl infatuation that couldn't possibly last. He was just a miserable old man.

Blah blah blah …

Then I'd go back to my room at night and daydream about the man with the smoky eyes. I would replay inside my head the ride up in the elevator with him to the research library that first day. Staring after him in awe as he nodded his curt farewell and melted away into the crowd at the back of the room.

He was like a sweet fantasy inside my head, just like gorgeous Dr. Wilson had been so long ago. Leather was there … and not. His silent gaze rocked me to the core when I would look up suddenly and catch his deep blue gaze appraising in that quiet, severe manner as he observed me bending over my work. It was like being hit with concentric waves of static electricity. Like rubbing my hand across the back of an angora cat and holding it close to my face, feeling the tendrils of energy lick the fringes of hair that drifted away from the braid against my shoulder, tickling my neck with invisible fingers.

Even when he wasn't there, he was! He would intrude suddenly into my mind when I was in the process of concentrating on something else. I would see his image before me: the gaunt, bearded and mustachioed face, the haunting blue eyes melding into the faces of other men. It was uncanny and unnerving. And unstoppable.

Still, I waged mortal combat with myself to keep from engaging in maneuvers to get closer to him, or use feminine wiles to lure him closer to me … or give him reason to even want to.

The next eight to ten weeks are still a half blur in my memory, and only a few bits and pieces still stand out with any clarity. The thing that remains uppermost in my mind was the determination to concentrate on my studies. I threw myself hard into the crucial hands-on training I needed in order to become a competent doctor. Indeed, not just a "competent" doctor, but an exemplary doctor.

But the smoky eyes kept slipping in under the RADAR.

Leather. Damn you!

But it wasn't _his_ fault.

Not _Mister_ Leather. Not Leather _Something_ … or _Something_ Leather. Just _Leather._ Leather gloves; shoe leather, leather seats, alligator leather, leather suitcase. He was luggage … baggage on my back everywhere I went.

On the sane side, I knew I should quit the job in the archives. Leave it behind and look for something else.

That was the grown-up side of me talking. On the other side, the infatuated little-girl half was telling me: "No no … you can't leave. You'll never see him again. You can't _do_ that!"

And so it went.

I took to calling home and talking to my parents. Once a week at least. Sometimes more often than that. The old Zai-Zo really got a workout for a while. Mom and dad were, at first, surprised. I wasn't one to be a homesick child, and they wondered if anything was wrong. Was I receiving failing grades? Was medical school turning out to be more than I could handle?

Nope. And nope. All I needed was something familiar and friendly to touch base with:

calm voices of authority to assuage my jangled nerves and bring me back down from all my hormonal hype!

I told my parents about Billy Travis, and how he'd taken me under his wing and showed me around, accompanied me down to the archive room to begin my campus job. I told them about the fascinating work with the old texts and papers.

And I told them about Leather. I described him in glowing and minute detail, down to the slender build, the silver beard, the haunting eyes and the big cane.

Even now, all these many years later, I sometimes wonder what mom and dad's initial thoughts were about my incessant chatter. Did they sense that their only child was falling for a mangy old man with so much mileage on him that he resembled a Greyhound Bus?? Probably. But they never said a disparaging word about this "crush" I seemed to be harboring. For that I will always be grateful. They knew I was old enough to make my own mistakes.

I remember settling into the routine, finally, of coming away from instructional mode and seeking out Billy Travis for a late lunch before heading to the Spider Banks. The only thing that worried me was the fact that I suddenly perceived a change in my friendship with Billy. Slowly and surely, although I did everything I could to prevent it, I was sure that Billy was falling in love with me!

I considered him a dear friend, of course, but as our lunch periods, filled with light-hearted banter and laughter, got to be a daily habit, I could see the change in him from amiable nurse-supervisor to a staunch, intent guardian and shadow who lingered on every move I made. I wasn't sure how to handle it, and I never encouraged him in any way.

It was a little complimentary, a little flattering, and a little frightening. Now there was not just one man within my immediate sphere, but two. Where could something like this possibly end up for all three of us?

Out of compassion and a sense of caution, I did not press Billy for more information about his friendship with Leather. That would have been cruel. Sometimes though, I steered the conversation into the recollecting of stories about Billy's job history, just on the chance that he might mention Leather in some of his memories.

Once in awhile he did, and I learned that the two of them had known each other for many years, ever since they had worked at the same hospital "back east". I avoided quizzing him, hoping more information would be forthcoming as a matter of course.

I told him, in turn, about my happy upbringing in Central Pennsylvania near the banks of the Susquehanna River. I described the rolling farmland owned by my father, who made us a comfortable living with animal husbandry and experiments in crop rotation and management. I told him of the tall blue mountains and the families of Amish who were our neighbors.

And finally, I told him about mom's multiple sclerosis, and how she had been treated and helped by Dr. House and Dr. Wilson … and about my childish infatuation with them both, especially Dr. Wilson. Her medical problem veered far away from either of their specialties. But mom had a way with men. She had probably charmed the socks off them.

At the time, I didn't know that my mention of Dr. House and Dr. Wilson had just shocked Billy Travis to his core. I remember my surprise when he got up from the table quickly, making some lame excuse, and hurried away from there.

Staring in his wake, I knew I would ask him about it again later.

I watched him leave the cafeteria, and wondered what I had done to cause such a strong reaction.

I didn't dwell on it. It was soon time to go down to the grotto, and I knew Leather would be there.

But I had at least an hour to kill before it was time to gravitate to the Spider banks. So I bussed my tray and wandered over to the library to walk aimlessly among the lighted cases and their antique displays.

I was mesmerized in spite of myself. I stared with fascinated amazement at the very old medical instruments and the old anatomy sketches, and a pristine first edition of "Gray's Anatomy" … and the strange artifacts that I had no idea what they'd been used for.

It wasn't long after that … that I discovered the book …

#

47


	10. Chapter 10

"Whisper of the Wind"

Chapter 10

"A Walk on the Wild Side"

November 2024:

He sat on his couch, feet propped stiffly on the coffee table.

He was out of sorts. He was hungry. He was tired. And his leg hurt. Like a son of a bitch. And his heart hurt worse than all of that put together. This little ugly freaking "handicap" apartment looked as though a hurricane had ripped through it. Where the hell was Wilson when you needed him?

Wilson hadn't been around for a long time.

Like sixteen years. And counting.

Yeah. Sixteen years, five months and an odd number of days. Ever since the whole world went "ka-boom" and spelled the end to something he had not even known he had treasured for the past twenty years, two months and sixteen days.

Those were numbers he could remember, because they never went any higher. Never changed. That was the total number of days he had had Wilson. But Wilson left him; went to live on another planet … in another dimension … in a parallel universe. In a galaxy far far far far far far away …

Something like that.

Leather had no wife to bitch about his slovenly habits or complain that he was never around. No spoiled brats to whine about being required to eat their vegetables.

He had no boss lady to yank his ass across the lobby to fulfill his commitment in the free clinic and get sneezed upon by every moron with a stuffy nose. He had no one to blame anymore for the things he mislaid.

And no compassionate best friend to sit beside him on this old, old couch … or wait on him when his leg hurt so badly he almost couldn't stand it.

Like now.

And here he was. Alone because of the dictates of fate. Solitary by choice. Still an island … isolated after years of habit. A majority of one in a one-man court. No hung jury here. Verdict: guilty. Guilty as hell. He was serving a life sentence.

Leather sighed. His hand went to the scar, that shriveled patch of emaciated flesh that had been with him twenty-five years, and would still be with him for the next twenty-five, if he survived that long, which he wouldn't. His leg had lost most of its flexibility. His calf had lost definition. It was skin over bone from hip to ankle, and it got tired so easily, causing his limp to worsen, the pain to accelerate. He could not work as a doctor anymore, except for consultations, and that was no challenge at all.

Which gave his tumultuous mind too much time to brood.

He'd had a kidney-lungs-liver transplant already, and it wouldn't be long before the old "insides" would be throwing up their hands in defeat again. And he was already on the second set of kidneys!

He missed Wilson.

"Whitey".

He must be careful how he referred to his friend. If he didn't, there was that chance that an unintentional _"Wilson" _might be spoken out loud. Questions would probably be asked and speculations raised that might reveal Whitey's whereabouts, and the fact that he was still alive. Well, sort of.

It had been a long time ago. Few people were still around anymore who remembered Dr. James Wilson and the work he did … and the work the two of them did together … and the tragedy that had blown their world apart. And the pity and the sympathy and the "Oh-My-God" stuff that had gone on and on …

And what they had once been to one another.

Leather remembered. He remembered Whitey every minute of every hour of every day since the accident. One tragedy on top of another.

The boring work he did nowadays deep in the Spider Banks … he had given the place that name, and it had stuck, just as he had renamed himself "Leather" after all the hoopla died down, and that stuck too … was barely enough to keep his restless mind occupied, and his hands from trembling, and his leg from going into permanent atrophy.

It wasn't a life at all. No one else felt sorry for him anymore, so he did it himself.

Carefully he lifted his cantankerous limb from the coffee table to place his foot on the floor. It protested as it always did when being moved from one position to another, and he hissed a breath of pain through his teeth. He grasped the stout black cane with the faded flames on the shaft, and heaved himself up.

"Whitey" had bought him this cane. Many years ago … after that damned dog had chewed the handle off his last one, and it broke and sent his ass spinning to the floor in one of the hospital corridors.

"Wadn' _me!_ Not _this_ time!" Wilson had wheedled, hands held defensively in front of him, barely keeping the grin off his face.

"Well no shit Sherlock! But it _was_ your fuckin' mutt … and you're buying me a new cane!"

Leather had found this one at a Tobacconist's shop. Wilson paid damn near fifty bucks for it and considered it a bargain. They'd laughed about it privately many times over the years. And he still had it. Some of the flames were worn off the shaft … but the wood had held up.

Leather would not have parted with it under any circumstance.

He sighed and hobbled into the kitchen. Grabbed a container of cold chicken parts from the refrigerator and a cold soda. He didn't drink booze much anymore. Bad for all the new gizzard parts inside him. Maybe there would be other new ones to join them …

How lucky could ya get?

He chomped down on his chicken and wet his mouth with diet Pepsi. PepsiCo had changed the formula again, and the damned stuff tasted like carbonated prune juice. He set the can on the coffee table and swiped his sleeve across his mouth. "Blech! Jesus! When will these morons learn that 'new and improved' never is?"

Sitting on the old sofa he'd owned for thirty years, Leather heard the "Say-So" chirp in his back pocket. He'd set it for 1:00 p.m., and it was nearly time to get over to the library and ride one of the elevators down. Down to the Spider Banks and haul out more of the grungy pieces of history to be sorted and preserved and catalogued and stored in the air-tight vaults along the spider legs.

"Another day, another dollar" … wasn't that how the Colonel used to say it? Wouldn't the old man be surprised if he were still around nowadays, that the dollar and all its paper companions were doing a rapid disappearing act? So were the jet planes he used to slice the skies with … and cars that ran on overpriced gasoline and smelly bio-diesel … and all those HD television sets. And I-Pods. And, thank God, cell phones.

Wouldn't he be surprised at the tiny, versatile Zai-Zo? One tiny sand-grain-sized crystal from planet Mars powered everything from hovercraft to MRI equipment. Who knew?

Dilithium crystals had hardly been as revolutionary!

Colonel House had gone to his final reward about fifteen years ago. Heart attack. John had been born pre-tech. Pre-Zai-Zo. If Blythe had been home, his life could have been saved easily with the new technology. But Blythe had been visiting Aunt Sarah in Ohio.

The Colonel was pretty ripe by the time she finally got back …

And life went on.

Leather reached to his jacket pocket for his meds: the new and improved (there was that phrase again!) Vicodin. No opioids in 'em. New stuff called _Drenivin._ Sometimes he felt that the remedy was worse than the disease. They didn't cause him to want to throw up anymore, and he didn't begin to detox if he missed one. Just hurt like hell. And he never suffered from urinary retention. He also had no appetite.

The newer aftereffects had stiffened his limbs. But they managed the pain. Most of the time. Sometimes he could even sleep through the night. They also ruined his kidneys. And his liver. And they had scored his lungs. Forced him to quit smoking forever if he wanted to be able to breathe …

They were well on their way to ruining the second set of kidneys as well.

_Wahoo!_

He sighed. Time to leave. Gresham would probably be in the Spider Banks by the time he got to work. It wasn't often that he got there ahead of her. She was a good kid. Fast. Smart. Not pretty, for sure, but cute as hell. She had a nose like a Tellerite. Hair like a straw stack in August. Eyes like …

_Stop it! This is idiotic!_

He couldn't pretend he hadn't noticed her … or hadn't seen her noticing him. He didn't understand why. She was barely a third his age.

Leather stood up with effort. Paused until the ripples of pain eased away and he was able to walk without going on his ass. He went into the kitchen and dumped all the chicken bones into the garbage and set the dish on top of others already in the sink.

He must go. Get into the damned Edinburgh with the hand controls. Hit the road. He would not be late and allow that snip of a girl to get there ahead of him …

#

51


	11. Chapter 11

"Whisper of the Wind"

Chapter 11

"Flying Lessons"

June 2008:

Wilson opened his eyes into a sideband of bright sunshine from the picture window that intruded across his field of vision. The air conditioner hummed white noise in his ears. He scrunched both eyes closed again quickly before the blinding light caused a killer headache, or burned out his retinas, whichever came first.

Even as he ducked his head away from the annoyance and shifted his position on the bed, he could hear a snort of soft laughter drifting toward him from across the room. House had evidently been awake before him. He propped himself on an elbow and looked over there, ready for some caustic remark from the peanut gallery.

Sometime during the night, House had shifted himself on the bed until his body was tangled in the comforter like a puppy in a box of towels. The hair on his head looked like he'd stuck his finger in a light socket. He had a large lump of flowery comforter material bunched beneath his left arm, and his skinny rear end was not quite covered by a bright corner of green ivy … and brilliant yellow and white daisies.

The rest of him was bared.

He was still wearing boxer briefs and tee shirt, and reminded Wilson of a kid camped out in the middle of his parents' living room. He was half grinning, and his face had an exaggerated expression of sinister innocence. Wilson wondered what he was thinking, and how his leg felt this morning. He had it propped up on the extra pillow.

Wilson had his mouth open, prepared to ask, but the words never had a chance to get past his lips.

"Shhhtt! I don't wanna hear it!" House's index finger bisected his lips in a shushing gesture that left Wilson with his mouth gaping. "Don't say it! Don't whisper it, don't even think it. Give me ten minutes to just acknowledge your presence without having to listen to you. A mere ten minutes without you voicing your motherly concerns that tug at my heartstrings and fill my senses with overwhelming gratitude and a quiet joy …"

Wilson sighed, exasperation evident in his soft expression. "I was only going to ask if you wanted me to …"

"Shut up, Wilson! Stuff it! You _can_, however, call room service and order breakfast. But not pizza! Even with air conditioning on, this whole room smells like pizza. Your eyes were bigger than your stomach last night, huh?"

Wilson knew an argument was useless. He threw back his sheets and sat up, thrusting his legs over the side of the bed. A snort of laughter across from him caused him to look up.

House was snickering. And pointing.

He looked down at himself. Too late, he realized that he was presenting the other half of Gregg's "undressed" look: tee shirt and jockey shorts. His street clothes lay in a heap on the floor, right where he'd discarded them last night. He had sat up with his friend until after midnight, making sure House was asleep and no longer in distress before he'd peeled down to skivvies and crawled beneath the covers.

They ate breakfast leisurely with the TV tuned to the Cartoon Channel. House remained tight-lipped, but did not seem to be in any great discomfort. When they were finished, Wilson gathered up the breakfast trays and set them in the hallway outside their door. He returned to the other side of the room and sat down cautiously at House's side. He turned off the television, eliciting a pissed-off look from House.

"Do I now have your majesty's permission to ask what I was going to ask you awhile ago?"

"What?" House was instantly back on guard, suspicious of Wilson's motives, and loathe to having his friend expound any more sympathetic condescensions than he already had.

Wilson shrugged, recognizing House's hesitation. "I've got a suggestion …"

"What?" Still suspicious.

"How about I call down for a wheelchair for you … for today?"

"What? Are you serious?"

"Yeah. Listen …"

The blue eyes narrowed to pinpoints of light. House was doubly suspicious now, openly hostile and ready to bolt. He frowned and glared at Wilson, prepared to put up a fight, regardless what the other man had to say. But first he had to find out what that was …

"Why? I'm fine."

Wilson snorted. "Where the hell have I heard _that_ before?"

"I wouldn't say it if it wasn't true …"

"Bullshit! Your leg's pretty good _now! _ There are a lot of exhibits and presentations down there. You saw part of them in the lobby when we registered. House, it doesn't make sense for you to try to cover all that ground … not with only your cane for support … especially after I had to inject you with a shot of morphine last night. You'll be in pain again within an hour. Tell me I'm wrong!"

House was silent.

Wilson pressed on. "You'll just be some guy in a wheelchair … not very interesting. Seen one, seen 'em all. You can always get out of the chair if you see something you want to take a closer look at. But a guy with a cane …hobbling around in pain that he can't hide … well … that'd be like a three-ring circus. _Everybody_ will be staring at you. Unless that's what turns you on …"

He waited for his words to sink in.

"Okay …" The curt nod again. "Okay … you win … but just for today."

_Bingo!_

House was not at all receptive when Wilson called down to the lobby to request the use of a wheelchair. When the knock on the door came sometime later, he did not even wait to see what the concierge had sent up for him. He thumped his way to the bathroom and slammed the door.

Wilson watched him go and sighed. House wasn't going to make it easy and he might as well resign himself to that fact.

The chair was a portable one: black canvas with a tubular frame and two fixed footrests. It looked brand new and had the hotel's logo stenciled on the back of the backrest. Wilson wasn't sure whether House would appreciate the flowered cushion that laid across the expanse of the seat, but left it there, just in case. He could imagine the colorful sarcasm House might use as a description when he saw it.

Muffled curses and throat clearings and coughs and grunts came through the closed door of the bathroom during the ensuing fifteen minutes, and Wilson smiled to himself. It was all a show from His Majesty, letting Wilson understand, (loudly), that House was not at all appreciative of his own reluctant concession to friendship and safety. Wilson also knew that the vaudeville act for his benefit was vital to House's self esteem, and that House was still thoroughly in charge of certain situations, like it or not.

When House finally came out of the bathroom with combed hair and mowed scruff and a bath towel wrapped around his middle because he'd forgotten to take clean clothing in there with him, Wilson let his smile show. House was heavy over the cane, he noticed, so the temporary reprieve he'd gotten from the injection last night had, by now, long worn off.

House was grateful for the presence of the wheelchair, but there was no way in hell that he would ever admit that to Wilson.

Wilson understood completely, and filed it all away in his mental file cabinet under the heading: "Different Ways House Has of Saying Thank You".

House took one look at the flowered cushion on the seat and snorted loudly. "Dunno whose smart idea that was … but it _stays here!"_

They dressed in casual clothing. Wilson was saving the good brown suit for tomorrow when House gave the address on diagnostics in the auditorium. For now, jeans and sports jacket.

Gregg settled himself into the wheelchair as though it had been his plan all along, and hung his cane on the metal frame. They were ready to leave the room. Wilson suggested they go to the mezzanine first, take a look over the balcony railing; check out the exhibits they wanted to visit. Save House some agony. He took his place behind the wheelchair and carded the room's lock behind them.

At the end of the hallway they waited for the elevator, and glared at each other in silent understanding for a moment, until the car hummed to a stop and the door pinged open. Wilson turned the chair and pulled it gently inside. House was not very happy with the arrangement, but at least he'd quit bitching and was beginning to grudgingly tolerate the logic of the situation.

When the elevator doors opened again on the mezzanine, the two men suddenly found themselves in the midst of a scenario they had not expected, and with which they were hardly prepared to cope.

_What the hell?_

Across the mezzanine, perhaps fifteen feet away where a break in the handrail opened onto a flight of steps descending to the downstairs, a tall well-dressed man stood rigid. He was nervous and impatient, holding an angry looking black handgun on another man who stood frozen at the opposite side of the steps.

Down on the floor at ground level, activities continued, the crowd unaware of the drama unfolding above them. Around the perimeter of the mezzanine railing, three more terrified people: one other couple, it seemed, and the woman who had accompanied the victimized man with his hands half in the air, stood immobile with horrified expressions on their faces. They had been told they would be shot if they dared make a sound.

The gunman's body stiffened. He had not taken into account those who might decide to take the elevator down here. The gun wavered between the man he was threatening, and the two newcomers who suddenly confronted him from the left. He quickly considered the image of House in the wheelchair, and the man behind him doing the pushing. His body relaxed marginally as he swung the gun back to its original position. What kind of problem could a man who couldn't walk, and his caregiver, possibly pose? His gaze scanned the others around them, and a quirk of his shoulders announced that the crippled man and the other guy were no longer considered a threat.

"Get the hell over there where I can keep an eye on you!" He demanded.

Wilson's mind spun with useless frustration, knowing that House was exposed and in a vulnerable position between himself and the man with the gun. All he could think of was the safety of his friend … and his own unspeakable horror if anything should happen to the man he had looked out for and tried to protect for so many years.

Wilson's muscles tensed uncertainly. Was the gunman in his right mind? He guided the wheelchair across the open space and halted it between the man cowering by the staircase and the three others rooted close behind him. Suddenly frightened out of his wits, he knelt at Gregg's side and placed his open palm on House's forearm.

"Get the hell away from there and stand up where I can see you!" The man with the gun hissed. "I'm not gonna shoot you if you do as I say. My bitch isn't with you. It's with that asshole over there …" The gun waved dangerously in the hand of someone who was obviously not that familiar with its use.

Wilson gulped. He let his fingers trail down House's arm, but rose to his feet and took a stance half in front and half to the side of the wheelchair. He said nothing, but stood still, watching grimly.

The unusual gesture made by Wilson upon his arm was not lost on Gregory House, who was not certain of its significance, if any. All his nerve endings were standing on edge, and a surge of electrical pain flashed through his damaged thigh. So much for the morphine injection!

He sat up straighter and glared across at the idiot with the Glock.

"So!" House began with an air of sarcastic aplomb. "What's got your knickers all in a knot, Darth Vader?" He angled a thumb in the direction of the frightened victim, and at the same time cocked his head, thrusting his chin toward the gunman.

"And who the fuck are you?" The man barked.

House shrugged. "Obi Wan Kenobi." Deep in his gut he was afraid he might throw up, but he would die rather than allow it to show.

Beside him, he could feel Wilson's adrenaline surge as though it were his own. One of the women behind him gasped, and from the corner of his eye, he saw the man beside her touch her arm … much as Wilson had just touched his.

"I'm just another 'asshole' that wants to know what the hell's going on here, and what this dude ever did to you! If you don't start talking, I'm gonna start screaming like C-3P0 being chased by Storm Troopers!"

There were more gasps, and the man's hand tightened on the gun. House held his ground. "Well?"

"You yell … and you're a dead cripple!" The man hissed nervously. He didn't look as dangerous as he'd seemed a moment ago, now that someone had called his bluff.

House snickered, grasping the armrests of the wheelchair with both hands. "Yeah, sure. So where does that leave you? A dead cripple on your hands and a hundred freakin' years behind bars. Get a grip and enlighten us!"

The gunman wavered for a second, and House realized immediately that he was just as frightened as the rest of them.

Suddenly, "Darth Vader" pointed an accusing finger at the victim standing across from him like a stone statue. "That son of a bitch stole my research paper and published it under his own name. Years of work … and he hacked into my computer and stole my goddamn notes … everything. Now he gets the grant and the credit for the work I did. I thought he was my friend, but he was just waiting for a chance. I'm going to kill the bastard!"

House's eyes hardened for a moment before he spoke.

"Two years ago," he said accusingly, "one of the Fellows on my service stole a research paper from another Fellow. Changed some of the words around and published it under his own name. The second Fellow was totally pissed … but she didn't shoot the guy. If you're smart, you'll chalk this one up to experience and get back to work. This moron didn't do the initial research, so he hasn't got the 'nads to fake a specific follow-up without your notes. All of that's still inside your brain. You win either way. Get your head out of your ass and do the math!"

The man standing in the sights of the drawn gun drew some courage from House. He scowled and leaned forward angrily. "I was _never_ your friend, you arrogant bastard. I didn't steal your freakin' papers … but you got what you deserved."

House's eyes played dangerously between them, watching the hostility mount. His hand moved surreptitiously behind his back, fingers searching for the tip of the cane …

Darth Vader was doing some rapid thinking. The gun in his hand was beginning to make him itchy. House's words had rattled him. Made him waver. His adversary's snarled denials made it worse.

Unobtrusively, House grasped the shaft of his cane and slowly drew it out; lifting it gradually away from his body … aiming for the gun in the other man's hand with the crook of the handle … gauging the distance to snag the weapon, flip it up and over and out of reach.

At the same instant, Darth Vader suddenly realized what House was planning.

What happened next was too fast for anyone to follow; too quick for witnesses to accurately remember the sequence of events well enough to relate them to authorities.

Vader's body swung left and the gun came around in an arc toward House. Two sharp retorts echoed like explosions across the floor of the mezzanine as House's arm came up above his head with the cane in his hand. He pushed himself out of the wheelchair in a valiant effort to breach the expanse, but he landed hard on the floor as he misjudged the distance to the gun.

The cane missed its target by inches. House hit the floor on his shoulder and hip and skidded forward on his side, grimacing with pain, rolling desperately around to his right as the bullets whizzed harmlessly over his head and slammed into the elevator doors. The cane flew in one direction and the wheelchair spun in the opposite, careening hard into the same space where the bullets had entered the metal.

Everything came to halt as though the Earth had suddenly stopped spinning on its axis.

James Wilson saw an opportunity open up, and took it. He threw himself to the floor, springing forward in desperation as he saw House roll out of the way unharmed. His momentum thrust his body sideways, and he caught the gunman between knees and ankles. The guy went down. The blow landed hard, sending Darth Vader sideways against the mezzanine railing with twice normal force. Wilson's peripheral vision told him that his efforts were being joined by the man waiting with his wife behind the stairway, taking the opportunity that had been thrust upon him. Vader's "victim" pulled back in nervous panic and leapt quickly out of the way.

With a loud crack of breaking wood, the mezzanine railing gave way under the heavy onslaught. The weight of two grown men endeavoring to protect themselves and those around them shoved the body of Darth Vader headfirst, through the splintered railing. He went over the side, limbs flailing, falling free of the parting banister and crashing to the lobby with sickening impact: the irresistible force hitting the immovable object. His body doubled sideways as it hit.

Behind him, James Wilson's slender body skidded forward, still gripping the gunman's legs. With the energy of sheer momentum, he began to slip over the edge behind him.

Below, screams and shouts reverberated from the people at the exhibits in the lobby. In the open auditorium, when gunshots exploded from somewhere above their heads, more screams resounded. A man's head hit the edge of a table filled with materials and literature. His body continued to the floor, neck broken. He was already dead. The gun hit beside him with a different kind of thump. It was a miracle it didn't go off.

Above them, the drama continued. Another body was halfway out over the section of floor that no longer had a railing. Those standing below stared upward, helpless and reaching, and saw a wide-open mouth, a mop of sandy hair floating in midair, and two arms wildly gyrating, grasping for a purchase that wasn't there.

And then the body stopped falling … and hung writhing. They heard someone shout …

Above on the mezzanine floor, Gregory House scrabbled madly for traction, throwing himself with all the strength in his powerful arms around in the opposite direction, fingers extending, grabbing for any loose chunk of James Wilson. He caught onto Wilson's pantleg with one hand and grabbed it viselike to join it with the other hand before he lost his grip and James fell.

At the same moment, the other man who had stepped in to help Wilson, grasped the solid banister of the stairs with one hand and threw his other arm over the edge to haul Wilson in by the tail of his sports jacket.

Between the two of them, they managed to hold on until Wilson was able to wiggle himself about and grab the other man's wrist to pull himself around and upward, to wrap his opposite leg around one of the unbroken spindles. Twisting and grunting, House and his cohort yanked Wilson around to land safely on the gritty floor on his gut, panting and sweating, face wild with residual fear. His eyes were like saucers.

"Oh God! Thank you!" He was only beginning to notice that blood dripped from the palm of his right hand like water from a faucet.

People from downstairs were rushing up the steps to see what had happened. They witnessed six people, huddled together, too traumatized to speak.

Someone called 911, and it wasn't long before New York's Finest were clamoring on the street outside with sirens blaring and red and blue lights flashing … and a herd of uniforms and EMTs scrabbling about the dead man on the floor of the Best Western's lobby.

Reporters and TV vans arrived shortly thereafter, but news-hounds got little by way of usable information from anyone inside. Cops held them at bay and refused them access to the scene. Medical professionals knew how to get nasty.

Wilson sat on the floor of the mezzanine with his back propped against the newel post at the top, surrounded by people who had faced the danger with him. He clasped Gregory House's hand like a lifeline against his chest. He was too shaky to get to his feet, and House was silent, obviously exhausted and in pain. A puddle of Wilson's own blood pooled beneath the hand that supported him shakily against the floor.

The "victim" sat on the first stair step and gazed blankly down at that other, larger blood splotch on the floor below.

House lay propped, half on his left side, right hand clutching Wilson's sports jacket, not saying a word about Wilson's trembling fingers choking his hand, or his friend's litany of thanks, repeated over and over again.

House was lying there because he _couldn't_ get up. Not yet. But Wilson did not know that.

Everyone watched in subdued silence as the police milled around below, taking notes and asking questions. EMTs examined the body of Darth Vader, put him in a body bag and

then onto the bus, and moved out, followed by a procession of screaming media.

Bereft of information, thoroughly stonewalled, and unable to get their crews inside to film a scene of blood and death, the remaining TV crews left also.

But there were other ways … ways to create sensation and make this tragic event into a terroristic tableau. If they were unable to get at the truth, lies would do just as well.

Gradually the police lieutenants found their way to the huddled group on the mezzanine.

House rubbed at his angry leg.The only thing that mattered to him at all was that James Wilson was okay.

And the rest of the world could just go take a flyin' leap …

_# _

60


	12. Chapter 12

"Whisper of the Wind"

Chapter 12

"Between A Rock and A Hard Place"

December 2024:

Leather:

He'd had a feeling for weeks that he'd met the Gresham kid somewhere before. He never forgot a name, although he _never,_ in his entire life, advertised that fact. He probably wouldn't have recognized her given name anyhow … or cared. Because he had never heard it. She wasn't his patient … why bother?

There was something that tickled around in his memory and insisted that she was a member of a family whose: Father … Mother …Grandparent …Child?? he had diagnosed and treated … _how many_ … damn years before? The elusive answer would not crystallize within his thinking processes, however, and he cast it aside for the time being, confident that it would pop into his brain like a firecracker … eventually.

Today was the day it finally popped.

The day after he returned from Mountain View … from his regular monthly visit with Whitey … as if that wasn't bad enough …

There had been a straw-stackey, moppy-haired kid also visiting Mountain View that day with her parents … some relative or other who was a patient. He hadn't seen her there before. She was about eleven, and her hair had been in frizzy pigtails, and she was a mouthy, whiny brat. He could hear her while he was sitting with Whitey … down the corridor, plaintive and demanding. He wanted to slap her silly.

"Mommy … Mommy … why can't I have … ?""Sit down and hush!"

The realization hit him the next morning like lightning in a desert.

Paula Gresham. From Pennsylvania … with that annoying kid.

Fuck!

Old medical documents he'd dug out of his hard-copy files earlier, lay scattered on his desk in his home office this morning. Confirmation. Gresham's mother had been his patient. A long time ago.

_Damn!_

His fist found the painted concrete-block wall with awesome impact. From the way his hand felt after he'd slammed it against there, he obviously did not know his own strength anymore.

Paula and Warren Gresham from somewhere in Pennsylvania had been new-age botanists and experimental farmers during the first decade of the Twenty-first Century. They were tillers of the soil and cultivators of new vegetable strains. Owners of beautiful horses and well-tended Holstein cattle. They were avid conservation activists: creators of innovative plant hybrids, and developers of many new and superior fertilization methods. They were intelligent people who had given the hard-work ethic of American farmers a new mantle of respect.

Paula had been struck down in the prime of her life with a severe case of multiple sclerosis. The disease had ravaged her body and left her wheelchair bound, all within a very short time. Warren had taken Paula to every prominent doctor in the Northeast. Those doctors had given her a dark prognosis, but one of them recommended that she be seen by a certain diagnostician at a teaching hospital in Princeton, New Jersey.

The diagnostician had been himself … along with a consult from James Wilson.

The Greshams had brought their kid along; a spoiled brat of a girl who sat and whined and acted like the star of the show until he had finally thrown her out of the exam room to sit on her spoiled little ass in a cramped waiting room.

She had taken a real shine to Wilson … he of the boyish face and the puppy dog eyes. After Wilson had gone out there and talked to her about the gravity of her mother's situation and pep-talked the Bejazus out of her, she actually turned halfway human, and she wasn't too bad to have around after that.

Paula had improved radically under their care, and was able to leave the wheelchair again after a time. When her initial round of treatments were finally concluded, they had seen her and her husband semi-annually thereafter for another few years. When their medical insurance ran out, she'd returned to local doctors in Pennsylvania. Leather wondered if she was still alive … but he wasn't about to ask!

But it was for damn certain that the kid who worked for him now was the same spoiled brat from those long-ago years. She was back in his life whether he wanted her or not. Thank God she didn't remember him. He felt secure behind the mantle of "Leather".

Nobody needed to know who he used to be.

Gresham:

I couldn't find Billy for lunch. He just wasn't around. His Zai-Zo was deactivated, so I couldn't call him to remind him what time it was. I wasn't really hungry, so I wandered around again in the amazing and magical reference library. I had seen all the exhibits in the lighted cases throughout the center of the cavernous room, so I headed for the smaller ones along the western and northern walls.

These were the cases that displayed historical documents from as far back as the mid-1700s. I saw handwritten case histories, torn and charred and blotched, pieces missing, browned out with ancient cellophane tape. I saw handwritten prescription forms with writings that resembled calligraphy rather than cursive. And there were drug lists and medicine names I had never heard of.

Then I saw the cases with the books. There was another copy of an original "Gray's Anatomy", pages curled and stained; its edges darkened and well thumbed. Some of the stains looked like blood, and I wondered if it had seen action on a battlefield somewhere.

There was a copy of "The Gold Headed Cane" by MacMichael from 1827, and "An Essay on Fevers", a fourth edition from 1764 by Huxham. I was wide-eyed and open-mouthed and not in the least apologetic for looking like a spellbound tourist.

And then I saw it.

On the cover was a photograph. A cluster of old brick, stone and cement buildings. Austere and forbidding, rising out of the winter snow. Surrounding trees looked like tall black twigs in their winter undress. I stared, uncomprehending at first. I had seen this place before … many years ago.

The book's title was: "A Memoir From Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital". It was copyrighted 2007 by Lisa M. Cuddy, M. D. It was autographed by the author on the back of the dust jacket. It wasn't that old. _Why,_ I wondered, _was it here?_

Might there be some mention of the careers of Dr. Gregory House and Dr. James Wilson? My heart was beating like a trip hammer. I pulled my Zai-Zo out of my pack and looked up the ISBN number. There it was. Copies could still be had from the old book dealer, _Amazon. _ I entered an order immediately. Mom and Dad _had_ to see this! What a Christmas present it would be for them.

No one would allow me to pull a book from a display, of course, but I would damn well have my own.

I turned and walked to the elevator, still overwhelmed by my discovery. I wanted to tell Billy. Wanted to tell Leather. But what would they know? Why would they even care? Those men from long ago and far away were nothing to them. More than twenty years had passed by since then.

I swallowed my enthusiasm and rode down to the Spider Banks.

I'd forgotten it was the first Monday after the first weekend of the month until I saw Leather's face when I walked out of the elevator. He sat in the Eames chair with his elbow on the armrest, chin in his palm. He looked as though he'd lost his last friend. He had not heard the elevator descend; had not even heard me walk across the floor and drop my coat and hat on my own chair in the corner. He would not have heard an atomic bomb go off!

I paused, watching him closely. He did not move, just sat there, silently brooding. I did not know whether to clear my throat, go back into one of the spider legs and hang out, or turn around and leave again.

The chirp of his Zai-Zo made up my mind for me. He shifted in the chair, pulled it out of his jeans pocket and pushed the activator harshly. "What?"

It had to be Billy. He didn't allow himself to be that grumpily familiar with anyone else. Where had Billy been fifteen minutes ago when I was trying to find him?

The Zai-Zo was in scramble mode, so I couldn't tell what was being said on the other end. But there was no mistaking the topic …

"Yeah," Leather said. "I know. It's okay. It just gets dicey sometimes, that's all. Sure W. T. Don't worry. I'm fine." He snapped off the Zai-Zo and returned it to his pocket. Then, like a light suddenly coming on in his face, he blinked, looked up and saw me standing there.

"How long you been hangin' around?" He asked.

"I've been here for five minutes. You didn't hear me. You were … I dunno … what _were_ you doing? Is everything okay? You looked … well … sad."

He glared up at me as though he didn't believe me. "I'm never sad. Was just thinking about something I need to take care of. Are we finished with Leg Number One yet?"

The abrupt change of subject threw me. "Huh?"

"Have we catalogued all the materials from Spider Leg Number One yet?" He spoke slowly and distinctly as though explaining to a three-year-old.

I bristled. "No. There's more. Last room, right side."

He nodded, sighed and pushed himself to his feet. He was holding his cane in his left hand, and I thought that was unusual. When he walked, the difference in balance caused his body to list to the left. It looked as though he was about to fall over sideways. He saw me watching and glared at me with a spark of warning in those blue eyes, as though he was daring me to open my mouth.

For two months I had worked for him … with him. Gave him all the leeway, and all the deferential treatment his status here … whatever the hell that _was_ … seemed to demand. I had not asked any of the questions I had been warned not to ask.

This was different. Even someone without an ounce of sensitivity to the pain of others could see that something was wrong.

I walked over to him boldly and thrust my hand out with a veiled demand of my own.

"What's wrong, Leather? What did you do?"

His glare was, at once, surprised and angry. He met my look in the instant it takes to blink, then looked away again and said nothing.

"Let me see! What happened?"

He was like a little kid. He hid his hand behind his back and resumed the glare. "Nothing. Let it be."

I did not withdraw my hand from in front of him. I just lifted my palm upward a little further and re-extended the reach with insistence … like extending a handful of nuts to lure a squirrel.

"Let. Me. See!"

His warning stare was turning to nervousness. His eyes flicked over the ceiling, walls, floor, and then back to my own unwavering look. Deep inside, my stomach was turning flip-flops.

He's gonna fire my ass …

The hand slid out from behind his back like a wayward child's hand slides out of a bag of cookies. He sighed as though he had the weight of the world on his shoulders. Slowly he brought his arm upward, and his hand emerged from his jacket sleeve. His fingers were curled; the tendons behind his knuckles were submerged beneath bruised and swollen tissue. There were still a few traces of blood he'd tried to wipe away, and I could tell he was reluctant to extend his fingers.

I brought my palm up beneath his, and lifted his hand to a point where I could see whatever it was he'd done to it. I thought I knew.

I tried not to smile. I was not very successful.

He frowned. "What's so funny?'

"Nothing." I said. "But it sure looks to me like a wall somewhere got mad and hit you on the fist."

I got a snark-filled face and a tall brow ridge at that one, but he did not pull away. After a few seconds, his face softened. "That damned wall was really pissed off." He agreed solemnly.

I continued to study the damage. I didn't think he'd busted anything, but it wouldn't hurt to be sure. "Can you extend your hand … open it flat?"

He spread his fingers gingerly, making the sore knuckles stand out in all their puffy glory, looking as though they hurt like hell. "Ow!"

"I think you'll live," I said. "But if I were you, I'd stay away from that wall, in case it decides to take another swipe at you …"

This time I almost got a smile. "Thanks for the advice, Doc. I had already decided to keep my distance."

"Is there someplace you have to be?" I asked him. "Or were you just on the way to the coffee maker?"

He nodded. "Coffee …"

"I'll get it. Go back to the chair and relax. I'll do the hard stuff today. You can get back into harness tomorrow." I went to the coffee maker and picked up the carafe, walked into the bathroom with it. He heard me running the water.

"You make decent coffee?" He shouted over the noise of the water spigot.

"Sure."

"Wonderful. Bring it on."

"Okay."

When I came back, I had not only the full carafe, but also a wad of paper towels sopping wet with icy cold water. "Put this on your hand!"

He glared upward, but did as I asked. I returned to the task of pouring us each a cup of coffee.

Behind me, his voice was low, but discernable.

"Thanks …"

I grinned again.

"Oh sure … no problem …"

#

67


	13. Chapter 13

"Whisper of the Wind"

Chapter 13

"Bedside Manor"

December 2024:

Leather:

Mountain View was a damn sight better than any of those other places his family wanted to hide him. He never lasted at any of them. The longest was at one of those ugly state-run joints that hired idiots off the street who knew nothing about caring for cases like Wilson's.

He'd languished there for way too long, and I hated knowing he lived under those heartbreaking circumstances.

I had no say in the matter. He and I were not blood-related. I waited and watched from a distance. I had recently awakened from a coma myself, and there was no way I could leave the hospital. I was trussed up in casts and braces like a captured grizzly bear, and I wanted the Wilsons to get lost, and for my friend to come to me …

I was _so_ full of shit!

When Wilson's parents died within a month of each other, his only remaining brother

left New Jersey for good. Tom Wilson went to California, probably to get away from the responsibility of his kid brother's care. Two brothers: one a vegetable, the other, God knew where. Tom thought Jimmy and I were fags anyhow, the bastard. That was fine with me. Wilson needed such morons like he needed another fucking hole in his head!

A week later, I asked Billy Travis to call his older brother in Michigan and arrange for Wilson to be transferred there. Billy had wanted to do that anyway, but he also wanted me to be well enough to understand his suggestion to do so.

Whit and Billy Travis owned a hospice near East Lansing where Wilson would finally get the treatment he deserved. Whit knew about the friendship between his brother and Wilson and me, and he knew about the accident. He and his kid brother were close, and I was sure he was the right man to watch over the most important person in my miserable life.

Right then, I decided I would leave Princeton and "die" also. I couldn't work anyway. Hell, I couldn't _move!_ Lisa Cuddy kept me on the books, I guess, more out of charity than any real value I might have been to the hospital.

The name "Gregory House" didn't turn heads in medical circles anymore. It just drew a bunch of blank stares.

It was time to move on. Maybe time to dump the name too. Nobody needed to know where I was … or where Wilson was … except maybe one or two people. The time for some real anonymity was way overdue.

I'd heard there was soon going to be a shakeup at PPTH. Lisa Cuddy was getting hitched, finally, to a high mucky muck cardiovascular specialist in Syracuse, New York, and I'd heard that Eric Foreman was being groomed to replace her as Dean of Medicine.

I wanted to come back to work under _him_ like I wanted to be run over by a damn school bus!

The rest of my old team … and the team after that … were just fine on their own and doing the same kind of work they would do if I were right there. I never hung around with any of 'em. They all thought I'd lost my marbles at the same time I'd "lost" Wilson. They were probably right. They'd kept a close watch on me while I was in the coma, or so I'd heard. But when I finally came around, they all went back to business as usual.

I never thanked them; they never expected me to …

By that time I'd healed a bit more and began to undergo rehab at my own place. I'd had the kidney transplant and looking forward down the road to the same thing happening with the lungs and liver. Too much pain … too many drugs … even the "safe" ones … administered too often … and after awhile a man's organs begin to whither and die on the vine.

Losing Wilson from my life was like losing my heart, and I might have been better off without any of them …

Before the horrible day when I woke up and discovered he'd gone around the bend forever, I'd had no idea what he actually meant to me. I never knew how much I gave a shit, or how much I would miss him. Only that his goofy face and sad, intelligent eyes were no longer occupied by the force that was Wilson.

The worst thing of all was that I'd never told him any of this when he could hear it and understand. I didn't know the truth myself until it was too late. That was what hurt the most. Tom Wilson had sensed it, and I had called him an asshole. Well, he was … but that was beside the point.

I sold most of the paraphernalia I'd accumulated over the years. A truck picked it up and took it off somewhere. And I "died". Billy packed the rest when I moved to Ann Arbor, Michigan, home of my alma mater. Far away from Princeton and close to Mountain View.

I found myself a contemporary "handicap" apartment and took a position as diagnostic consultant and faculty advisor at the university. I was healing by then, except for the damn leg. I was calling myself "Leather", and getting used to answering to it …

It wasn't that far from Lansing, and I could visit Wilson whenever I wanted. I could sit there with that empty shell of skin and bone that had once housed the essence of this dear friend of mine.

I could tell "Whitey" some of the things I'd thought about all those years … some of the stuff I'd wondered about the two us, but could never find words that made any sense, either to him or to me.

It became so much easier to say this stuff when I knew he wasn't listening …

I was using a wheelchair by then, and once in awhile crutches. Getting old aint for sissies, especially since I was trying to learn to walk on a leg that wouldn't hold me up most of the time.

When I finally went in for the lung and liver transplant, I asked them to dig around in the smashed-up leg and see what they could do to straighten the damaged Achilles tendon and strengthen the ankle and foot.

They told me it was a bad idea … let time do its work and be patient.

Shit! It continued to atrophy and turn my ankle inside out.

When I was strong enough I looked for work, just to keep busy and keep the old sorrow and regret at bay. The administrator's job seemed to fall into my lap. It made me instantly suspicious when the Dean of the medical school called me at home and offered it to me. I thought: "Don't look the gift horse …" Right?

When I started work, I bought a "handicap car". They were something new; invented and manufactured in Scotland, and were called "Edinburgh". Ugly as hell, but driving one was simple and uncomplicated. I told 'em to take the "handicap" logos off the bumpers! They said they couldn't do it. Safety regs. Crap! So I got a hammer and chisel and did it myself a week later …

I asked for a piano for Whitey's room, and they brought in a spinet with a great sound. It didn't take up nearly as much space as my old baby grand in the new apartment. I wrote Whit a check for it … plus a couple extra grand, but he said it wasn't necessary. I did it anyway. Charity begins at home, I guess.

I had only lived in Ann Arbor about eight months when I looked up one day from the desk in my office. I saw a familiar dark face in the hallway outside, just staring in at me. It was Billy Travis, Whit's brother. My friend. And Wilson's. What the hell was he doing here? I invited him in and we sat and talked for a while.

"I just walked up five freakin' flights of stairs. What the hell's with that? You've got the elevator _turned off?"_

I snickered. "If these brats want counseling, they've gotta earn it!"

He snickered back. "Leather reminds me a lot of Gregory House …"

Billy told me that Princeton Plainsboro had undergone some drastic changes in the months since I'd been gone. Some guy nobody ever heard of had been brought in as the new Dean of Medicine. His name was strange, Billy said.

Lisa Cuddy, who was now Lisa Rothberg, lived in Upper New York State. Eric Foreman had to take a back seat, and was this "strange" guy's second in command. I didn't ask questions. Wasn't that interested.

Allison Cameron Noble had taken a post in Atlanta, in charge of Emergency Medicine. Robert Chase was firmly entrenched in my old Diagnostics Department, whiteboard and all. Good luck with that, "Bob".

I laughed. "Does he walk with a cane? Whack anybody in the shins with it?"

"Nope."

"My guess is, he won't last."

The other Dr. Wilson … Stephen Wilson … was now in charge of Oncology.

Billy said the first time he heard someone call _that_ Dr. Wilson from the corridor, and a voice answered from the office that was once James Wilson's, he'd felt a ghostly chill run down the center of his spine.

I understood.

Then Billy said: "Hey Boss … what would you say if I were to tell ya I'm thinking about moving to Ann Arbor?"

And I said: "Are you kidding me?"

And he said: "Nope. Boss, let's face it … _somebody_ has to keep an eye on you. It's always been me before … and to tell the truth, I miss you."

"Well, come ahead then," I told him. "You're always welcome. An adult to talk to once in awhile would be a great change from having to listen to the gripes of all these damned med students. One of the little shits is supposed to start working for me … and I'm not sure if I'm up for that or not. I'm having visions of another whiny-ass Allison Cameron, and I might have to give her knockout drops if her mouth cranks as much as Cameron's used to!"

That's when he told me that all his belongings were already in a cargo van that was on its way here, and he'd take charge of the "Allison Cameron Clone".

I might have known.

Two weeks later, Billy landed the night shift Supervisor's job in the teaching hospital.

From there he could dog my weary ass twenty-four hours a day and watch me like a hawk to make sure I wasn't falling apart … or falling on my ass because of the freakin' leg … and the other stuff.

Some things never changed … we were both of that opinion, but we'd have to have a talk about it.

Billy started to call me "Leather". All the hullabaloo had calmed down, finally, from the accident that had taken Wilson from me, and I never wanted it to get started again. Or even have to talk about it. I'd pulled a fast one, thanks to his brother. There was nothing in my records or on any Computer under any other name than "Leather". Whit had taken care of that too. He knew people he could count on. He was sneaky. He and his staff had very successfully sent "Gregory House" into the ether trail of high lonesome.

Wilson wouldn't care much what we did. He was just sitting around on the third floor of Mountain View, ignoring everything and admiring the wallpaper.

It was funny, I guess. Billy called me "Hey Boss!" for a while until he got used to the rest. That was when he officially became "W. T."

Even Wilson wasn't "Wilson" anymore, but "Whitey" … the nickname his new attending nurses had affectionately dubbed him with.

God knows it fits.

His hair is white as snow.

And so it went …

… and so it has gone for so many years now that it is sometimes difficult to keep it straight between the 'real' fiction and the science fiction!

Whit and his brother "W. T." and I are all pretty good friends now, and I'm actually beginning to believe in Whit and his "little green men".

Some damned strange things happen around here from time to time.

Haw haw.

I have my "other" babysitter back now … plus that bothersome kid. It's soon gonna be Christmas …

Joy to the World!

#

73


	14. Chapter 14

"Whisper of the Wind"

Chapter 14

"Best Laid Plans"

AUTHOR's Note: I'm spending a few days at the Finger Lakes region of upper New York state … visiting with my son and his family. I'll be back on Monday, Lord willing. Thank you for the great reviews!

Bets;)

Saturday, June 7, 2008

Noonish:

Joe Callucci never wanted to see his brother-in-law again as long as he lived!

Not only was the son of a bitch into him for over two grand, which he knew he would probably never see, but the bastard was also planning to kick loose of his pregnant wife and run off for the weekend with a goddamn cocktail waitress from South Boston.

"There's a Cessna Skyhawk," Jerry Waltham said quietly, as though he thought he was being eavesdropped upon, which he was … "sitting on the apron by Hangar 'E' at Logan Airport. She's fueled up and ready to hit the sky about one o'clock tomorrow … heh heh heh … ya with me so far, Baby?"

Joe Callucci had heard all this whispering and conniving because he'd been hanging out in his sister's kitchen and heard Jerry walk into the living room with his cell phone, talking to some sleazy girlfriend. Joe didn't know why Jerry was whispering; Jerry had no idea he was even there. Maybe it was his guilty conscience doing the eavesdropping as well…

Joe had the day off from his job at the Chrysler dealership, and had come over to Jerry and Wanda's place late this morning just for the heck of it, to hang out with his baby sister and maybe shoot the shit awhile and con her out of a cup of coffee or two.

But she wasn't there. Probably out grocery shopping, which she sometimes did on Saturdays.

He was about to make himself a quick cup of coffee anyhow, when Jerry wandered into earshot with his cell phone glued fast to his ear. So Joe stepped into the alcove between the refrigerator and the wall, and listened with unabashed curiosity.

The little Cessna airplane had been chartered, evidently. Jerry was a licensed pilot with over a thousand hours on small jet and prop aircraft. He was a freelance ferry pilot for all the major airlines, so his credentials were unassailable. He was in there telling this mysterious broad that he would be over to pick her up about nine tomorrow morning. Then the two of them could take to the sky to spend a carefree Sunday in New York City.

Callucci leaned against the wall between the refrigerator and the door to the living room, and listened further with rapt attention. Jerry was a lying, cheating bastard, but his wife of six months saw only his big blue eyes and blond hair and charming manner. Joe's sister couldn't see the forest for the trees, and Jerry had probably been cheating on her from the day they were married!

When Jerry got off the phone a few minutes later, Joe sneaked back across the kitchen, shouldered out of sight into the hallway and then tiptoed up the back stair steps. If he got out of there soon, he could drive over to South Boston and check out this broad who worked at the Holiday Inn. Maybe he could do something to throw a monkey wrench into hers and Jerry's clandestine plans. After that the shit would hit the fan for sure, because Joe would make certain Wanda heard the evidence for herself of Jerry's infidelity. Only then could he get her to wake-the-hell up and file for a divorce.

Joe never gave it a thought to just mind his own business and let things work out however they were meant to work out …

When Jerry Waltham finally sat down in his living room and turned on the TV to ESPN, Joe sneaked back down the steps, let himself silently out the kitchen door and hurried down the block to his Dodge Ram pickup.

He had plenty of time to indulge himself with foolish games and try to make himself a hero in his sister's eyes.

The airport was only twenty miles away. Joe could take his time sneaking around, locating the girl at the Holiday Inn cocktail lounge Jerry had mentioned … and then the airplane.

He would pick out a good observation spot from the parking lot. Then in the morning he would return and park the truck and wait. His own cell phone was freshly charged, and he could get some pretty damned good pictures with which to blackmail his brother-in-law.

Rotten bastard!

Ten o'clock Saturday night:

Hualu Hualu Maluu opened his eyes to semi-darkness and the rattle of rain on the hard metal roof above his head.

Rain! Second frickin' day in a row! Was God gonna drown the whole world again? He'd been doing a pretty good job with the eastern seaboard.

Hualu Hualu stretched his burly body to the limits of this confined space. The bunk behind the seat of the big old Peterbilt diesel wasn't exactly the Taj Mahal. He probably should have rented a motel room at the truck stop across the plaza where there were showers and comfortable beds, but he'd been looking to save a couple of bucks.

The truck's engine gently rocked the eighteen-wheeler's chassis, masking the sound of the rain, keeping the A/C going and maybe soon lulling him into sleep. After two years behind the wheel, he was used to life on the road. You took your forty winks when and where you could, and added it into the log.

Hualu Hualu was a big man. Twenty-eight years old. Swarthy and bronzed, six feet three inches and 310 pounds. Hawaiian, All-American football jock for Penn State three years in a row. He'd almost frozen his ass off in the northeast. He had a degree in Agricultural Science now, but wasn't quite ready to settle down. He was in the market for high adventure, and he wanted to see as much of Continental America as possible from the lofty perch of the Peterbilt cab before assuming the role of an Agricultural Extension Agent in his native Honolulu.

This tanker was loaded with high-octane gasoline and was due at the New York Port Authority terminal by 2:00 Monday afternoon. He was in no hurry. He had another full day to kill. Come morning, he might stop off in Bethlehem to see his Mom.

Right now he was tired. St. Louis to the home terminal in Altoona, Pennsylvania, had been a long bobcat just to pick up a slosher and make a run for New York. Must be a special delivery of some kind, although his trip manifest indicated nothing. He'd heard about environmentally friendly fuel experiments … perhaps he was carrying something revolutionary.

So here he was, ready to head out of the Allentown Truck Plaza sometime tomorrow with a full payload. The rain on the tractor's roof was telling him he'd have to run cautious. He'd already changed the hazard sign on the side of the tanker. His instincts were good. He didn't need a warning from dispatch in order to get it right. He swung around and settled into the bunk again. Nothing on TV except reruns. The shitty weather made the reception grainy, and it was getting late. He would snooze while the snoozing was good.

Hualu Hualu had tended to business in the rest room of the plaza's convenience store an hour before. He'd had a hamburger and fries and grabbed himself the biggest cup of orange soda they had. Later, he dumped the paper residue into a trash bag to dispose of in the morning, and pulled up the soft old brown blanket. He'd freeze his Polynesian ass off under the powerful A/C if he didn't.

Hualu Hualu Maluu sighed and snuggled in. He knew he would probably have to wait in line for other tankers to unload ahead of him. No problem. He'd done that before too.

Saturday, June 7, 2008

3:00 p.m.

"If you stay in the wheelchair," Wilson cautioned quietly, "there's a good chance the police will talk to us first and then let us go back to the room. There isn't really that much we can tell them, other than that the banister broke when we jumped the guy. His death was an accident … but his family could probably sue the hotel."

James Wilson's guts were churning. He thought he might throw up, but he could not allow himself to show such blatant vulnerability. Gregory House's recent act of courage may have saved the lives of six people, and his disabled body would surely pay for it later. James was also very sorry that the disturbed man had had to die. His hand hurt like hell. The cut was deep, and he clenched his fingers into a tight fist to stem the flow of blood.

Gregory House grunted in exasperation without answering his friend. Wilson was probably right on all counts. He pushed himself gradually, stubbornly away from the tight hold James Wilson had on him.

They were still together on the floor amid wood splinters and other debris. Gregg's shoulder ached from his dive out of the chair, and his bum leg wasn't too happy about it either. But admitting that fact to "Mother-Hen Wilson" was simply out of the question.

Nearby, four shocked and frightened people stood by listlessly near the disheveled men sprawled nearby. It was finally dawning on them that these two men were doctors also, and might be part of the reason they were still breathing.

House began to work his way across the floor, mostly on his ass. Behind him, Wilson sat weakly with his back against the remaining undamaged post of the stairway and watched House's awkward movements gravely.

The look on Gregg's face as he pushed out of their way with cold determination from any hands extended in assistance, was almost as forbidding as the gun in their faces a half hour before.

House did not want, or expect, help or solicitude. Even the icy glint of his forbidding eyes was enough to warn the confused strangers to stay where they were. They too watched, perplexed, as he crawled across to the abandoned wheelchair, put on its brakes and with a grunt of effort, hefted himself onto the seat. He looked around for his cane, but it had done a disappearing act.

A noise on the stairs drew everyone's attention, next, in the opposite direction. As they watched, two heads appeared, growing larger. Then suits materialized below them. Two police lieutenants ascended the stair steps with their identification wallets open in their hands. They would want to ask questions. Lots of questions. One of them carried House's cane. It must have gone over the railing with Darth Vader. House didn't bother to hide the smirk.

He sat for a moment, gathering himself before releasing the brakes and rolling the chair across the floor to Wilson's side. The cop handed him the cane, so obviously his.

House took it with a curt nod of thanks, but he was distracted. Something was not right. He saw that Wilson had not moved, had not regained his feet, or made any move to extricate himself from the position he was in right now; _had_ been in since Darth Vader had taken his swan dive into eternity.

House focused all his attention on his friend. Was he injured? One of the cops was saying something, and one of the two other men then answered in a subdued tone.

Gregory House did not hear the words.

The two cops stood looking around again. They took in the scraped floor, the broken and splintered railing. One of them held a notepad; the other, a tiny recorder. They had both put their I. D.s away.

Their focus was coming back … 180 degrees … settling on him and then Wilson. The two couples had retired to a small furniture grouping in the corner near the elevator.

House did not give them a second look.

His eyes were ice on steel; his nerve endings stretched like violin strings.

"Wilson? Why don't you get up from there?"

#

79


	15. Chapter 15

"Whisper of the Wind"

Chapter 15

"Joy to the World, as They Say"

December 2024

Gresham:

Christmas isn't what it used to be.

It's lost most of its magic, and as far as its true meaning is concerned, that succumbed to commercialism when I was still a little kid.

Like the God stuff.

You don't hear much about God anymore either. "God" works okay in science fiction. Otherwise, not so much. Too many people have died, so they say, fighting wars in the name of some God or other.

So, are we finally "getting it" that war is a bad idea? There's a quiet undercurrent in the college crowd … gaining momentum … that encourages people to take some of the money they used to spend on war … and spend it on peace …

… and sending probes to other planets to bring back useful things like … Zaivonite sand crystals.

Revolutionary concept, right?

We still give presents to one another this time of year … but we don't go nuts. We leave ourselves enough funds for rent and utilities and groceries. What a crazy and strange and wonderful idea! We don't use currency much … who needs it? Everything gets Zai-Zo'd. Mugging people for their money has gone out of style because there is so little cash out there, and nobody steals Zai-Zos because nobody but their owners can use them.

Christmas is nearing. And the university is shutting down so its students and faculty can go home to spend the holidays with their parents and families. Mass transit is booming. I'm looking forward to it.

I've been Zai-Zo-ing my folks for weeks now, talking about my experiences here, and about my friends. And Billy and Leather. Can't wait to sit at the kitchen table at home though, and share a meal with Mom and Dad and catch up with everything in person. It will mean more to me this year than all the years before, combined …

I yawned and sat up on my bunk. The little pink clouds that had been swirling around in my head … filled with fantasy images and goofy ideas … popped like balloons someone had stuck pins into. Today I was heading home to Pennsylvania for the holidays, and it was time to gather up the stuff I was taking along. Time to be on my way.

Last night had been my final night in the Spider Banks for almost two weeks. Leather and I gathered up the loose materials we were still working on and put them on the table in some semblance of order.

Leather was still a little ouchy with his hand, and it was obvious that it pained him. Dumb-ass thing to do … smack the wall with a closed fist … but he'd done it and never even told me why. Now he was paying the price. His knuckles were smeared with some kind of orange antiseptic, but I could still see the bruising beneath. I pretended I didn't see him wince when he flexed it, and he pretended he didn't notice me watching him. Damned cat and mouse games.

I didn't know if he had holiday plans himself, and I didn't ask. He looked so desolate and angry that I didn't dare broach any subject with him that even hinted at a personal nature. Something else was bothering him, and had been for some time. Anything that bothered him, bothered me also … but I was forbidden to touch on it. God, I hated that! He looked at me a couple of times like he needed a hug in the worst way.

But not from me.

Determined to travel light today, I headed across campus to catch the shuttlebus on my way to the airport. I had my pack thrown over my shoulder and my old baseball cap pulled down over my hair. It was cold at this time of year, and my jacket was zipped up to my chin.

I still had to stop by the University Message Center and check my box to see if the new class schedule for next year had been sent out yet. They didn't Zai-Zo _everything_ … some of our med school stuff still showed up in hard copy. Anyhow, I needed to check, just in case.

Jimmy at the service counter smiled when I showed up. "You look like you're freezing to death, Gresham," he said. He turned to my slot and walked over to pull out a couple of folded papers and a square cardboard box.

"I am," I said. "It's cold out there!" I frowned at the package he held in his hand. "What's that?"

He shrugged. "I dunno … but it's got your name on it."

When he handed everything across, I saw the Amazon logo, and I knew. It was the book I'd ordered … and I'd forgotten about it. "Holy shit!" I turned away and began to tear off the wrapper at the cardboard strip along the bottom.

Jimmy laughed. "Enjoy!" He said. "And Merry Whatever!"

"Thanks, Jimmy," I said, already turning away. "You too."

I dumped the wrapper in the trash and walked back along the corridor, holding the book as though it had been woven of gossamer and edged with gold. It was a third edition, and I smiled to myself. At least the thing had sold. It wasn't as though it had been an obscure volume, lost to the musty back shelf of some literary warehouse …

I slowed my pace and took my time, paging through it, looking for some reference to Dr. House or Dr. Wilson.

"A Memoir From Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital" was not a thick volume, but it contained a lot of old photographs of medical staff … and stuff about treatment and patient rooms. Everything was done in black and white photography, and a note on a separate page inside said the pictures had all been taken by a photographer by the name of Emma Sloan and donated as a thank-you gift to the medical staff, with special thanks to Dr. Gregory House and his Diagnostic and Surgical teams.

Lisa (then) Cuddy, had sorted the photographs by subject and written small anecdotes to go with each one. The handsome little book that came out of that labor of love had become a popular item among the hospital staff, and had later spread out to the eastern seaboard, and then went national. I had never seen it before, but it seemed that it was the precursor of books of its kind that later spread all over the world.

And sure enough … the middle of the volume contained a dedication page to the good Dr. Gregory House. His posed photograph showed him sitting on a stainless steel, wheeled stool in an examination room. A fancy walnut cane with brass band beneath the

Derby handle, lay across his knees, and his face held an amused smirk, as though he was in possession of a dirty secret. I grinned at the look. He wore a dark tee shirt with some obscure design beneath a natty dark sport coat, and of course he wore jeans. I had heard that he _always_ wore jeans. He was gorgeous, and the devilment shone out of those eyes.

Only one other person I knew who possessed such a look was … Leather. The two of them might have passed as father and son.

Flipping further through the pages, I found the other man … the one whom I'd had such a crush on all through sixth grade. Dr. James Wilson was posed before a pharmacy counter, and he was leaning into it on one elbow. He was wearing a white lab coat, and the smile on his face was subtle, his dark eyes shining, his heavy eyebrows drawn together a little in a sweet, bemused expression that made my heart thump in my chest, just as it had done sixteen years ago.

I felt a pang of sorrow for a moment, for I had also heard that Dr. House and Dr. Wilson were both dead … killed in a tragic accident a long time ago …

I could not wait to share this book with my parents. Happily, I closed it and inserted it carefully into my pack. I picked up my pace and walked on.

I was now in the hallway, headed for the front door, coming up on the building's big auditorium. There were people going in and out, some of them having taken a shortcut through there on their way to somewhere else. It was a normal practice. There was a small knot of people grouped around the main entrance at the middle. They seemed to be listening to something.

As I drew closer, I could hear the soft melodic notes of a piano. A Christmas carol. Played by an artist of some talent. I moved closer and stopped also to listen. Someone in front of me moved over to make room, and I was able to look inside and see the person at the keyboard.

Bent down across the keys with his chin almost touching them, I could see the familiar bent grey head, the wrinkled sport shirt, the graceful, long-fingered veined hands of the man called "Leather". He seemed to be "one" with the instrument in the same fashion that an expert equestrian becomes "one" with his mount. The definition between them was infinitesimal, their symbiosis as close as a clown fish and a sea anemone.

"Silent Night" had never sounded more beautiful. I found that I was holding my breath, as though to breathe would destroy the magic, the tiny arpeggios, the lilting harmony and the sense of being transported into a world where everything was made from the stuff of dreams.

Behind me, I felt the gentle fall of a hand on my shoulder. I started, half incensed that someone would break the spell. I turned slightly, and all was instantly forgiven. It was Billy Travis, moving closer to my side. Not speaking. Not interrupting. Billy was as enthralled as I was.

When the music finally ended, Leather's hands fell into his lap, and he looked around at the small crowd watching him from a distance. He seemed embarrassed for losing himself in the moment. He sat hunched, unmoving until the hangers-on slowly began to turn away and go about their business.

Billy pulled me away and off to the side. I'd been looking closely at Leather's hands … checking for the swollen knuckles, and about to protest. I wanted to go down there and tell him how surprised I was that he could not only play a piano so beautifully, but play it with his hand messed up like that.

Billy put a finger to his lips. "No," he whispered. "Don't go down there. Not now."

I frowned. "Why not?"

Billy sighed. "Because that Christmas Carol he was playing … wasn't for anyone here. He wasn't even aware there were people standing around out here. He was playing for someone who will never hear music again. He was playing for a memory. Let it go, Gresham …"

I whirled on my heel and took off out of there. If Billy told me one more time to 'let it go', I was going to go out of my mind.

I didn't know at the time that when I turned my back, Billy was able to see the title of the book in my backpack, and he stared at it with dread in his eyes.

I pulled away from his grasp and ran. Out the door, down the steps and away.

Tears ran down my face and blew away in the wind. I didn't stop running until I was halfway down the street and the shuttlebus was coming up behind me.

Christmas. Winter break. Home.

What a great start this was!

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83


	16. Chapter 16

"Whisper of the Wind"

Chapter 16

"And I Miss You So"

December 2024

Billy Travis:

I watched Gresham as she ran away from me, and experienced so many mixed emotions that I didn't know which one to pay attention to first. My initial impulse was to go after her. Stop her. Whirl her around and grab her shoulders and demand to know why she was in possession of _that_ particular book at _this_ particular time …

And it would have been none of my goddamned business.

Staring after her diminishing figure and saddled with the regret that I had made her cry,

I stood in the doorway of the auditorium, rooted to the spot. Torn between what I needed to do for Leather and my foolish feelings for this fascinating little girl, my head began to feel as though it was suddenly stuffed with mashed potatoes.

I turned and leaned into the doorjamb, trying to collect thoughts that were beginning to ricochet like high-caliber bullets inside a steel drum. Was Gresham about to tumble to the closely guarded secret of Leather's real identity? Or had she already? Would she expose this private and vulnerable aspect of him that, if brought into public scrutiny again, could be the end of him?

For now, I had to let her go. She was headed home to her family for the holidays. The damage I might inflict on her young sensibilities could be enormous if I confronted her now. It would only compound the damage I might also do to Leather.

Leather had been here first!

I had him … and Whitey … to thank for the person I eventually evolved into over the years. I could not allow them to come to harm. Or _implied_ harm. Whitey would never know. But Leather would suffer enough for both of them.

I took a deep breath and turned, and walked slowly down the aisle of the auditorium. He was still seated there. At the piano. He had lowered the cover over the keyboard, and he sat with head bowed, hands in his lap, unmoving. I could only imagine what he must be thinking. I could not get to his side fast enough.

"Hey," I said softly. "Boss?"

He looked up, acknowledging me as though waking up and finding out that he was not where he thought he was. His mouth was slightly open, making the sunken cheeks appear cavernous in his face. His eyes were brimming and full of misery. I'd been right about the place where his thoughts had been. He said: "Hi, W. T." He picked up his cane from where he'd placed it beside him on the piano bench, leaned it against the front of the keyboard cover, and then indicated the space at his side.

It wasn't a big piano bench … and I would have made two of Leather … but I slid in beside him anyway, not saying anything. Not touching him. I'd always known that touching was verboten, unless he was at death's door and incapable of movement. That had happened once or twice over the years.

He turned his face away from me again, and stared down into his lap. "You had your RADAR turned on again, eh?" He asked, trying to lighten the mood.

"Yup," I said. I did not mention Gresham or the book. Other things needed to be mentioned first. "Heard you playing Silent Night … and the 'Leather Magnet' just kind'a pulled me over. You okay?"

"I am now," he said quietly, and then paused for a moment.

"I had to get away from that kid. Dammit, W. T. … she stares holes right through me! She's too sharp … too damn smart for her own good. She gets to me. She has all the stuff in Spider Leg #1 correlated and catalogued and cross-filed and almost ready to put on display upstairs. She's been researching and writing profiles and histories of all the old medical equipment on the main floor. And she watches me like a hawk."

"Reminds you a little of someone else, doesn't she?"

He nodded …sort of … although it was more like a sudden dip of his chin toward his chest. He looked up at me then, and away again in the same moment. "Yeah. Two someones. Cuddy used to look at me like that … and then bust my ass. And shake her goddamn finger in my face. And Jimmy! Jimmy looked at me that way too … and at the end, he stopped busting my ass. And I can't …"

His voice trailed off to a whisper, then dried up completely.

I admit it. I wanted to hold him close to me. Protect him the way Jimmy used to do. He reminded me of a leaf blowing in the wind. Tossed in a vortex of whirling violence and too unsteady to hold onto anything he could use to stabilize himself.

The man he had once been: the proud and profane misanthrope who cared little for colleagues or patients, had been a façade, a clever smoke screen for his unwillingness to be labeled a "Marcus Welby". The widely held fallacy of his domineering aura of despotism had blown away in recent years … because he had to be "Leather" now, and let "Gregory House" go …

Just like that leaf, he was; tumbled and tossed far from the tree that had given it life. He was gruff. And demanding. And set in his ways. His armor was still in place, but it was rather like an eggshell now … solid, but infinitely breakable.

The one thing he'd cared most about in his lifetime was gone … robbed of a future. The loss weighed heavily. It was breaking his back. And his heart.

I wanted to put my arms about him and enfold him in a cocoon of warmth and tell him that someone still cared. But you don't do that with Leather. Everything about his personal space was charged with static electricity that warned people to keep their distance.

That included me.

So I sat silently at his side. Finally, there on that old piano bench, in that nearly empty auditorium, this frail, fragile man with the deadly inner strength, began to speak. I did not interrupt. Did not move. I did nothing but listen. And in doing so, I learned some things I hadn't known before that day. At least not for sure. But I was very honored that he chose me to tell it to.

Leather's first words:

"He was like the whisper of the wind, Billy …"

He raised his eyes a little. I saw the tears he refused to let fall. I didn't react, or remind him not to call me that. He would not have appreciated it.

"I always knew that after all his bluster … and the thunder and lightning were finished, and the hurricane winds backed off … and he'd said what he had to say … that soft breeze always returned to warm us both.

"Because that's who he was.

"He had my back. He always looked out for me. He groused when I stole the food from his plate. He bought my lunch every time I _thought_ I was tricking him into it. And he cooked my meals, washed my dishes … even the ones I piled in the sink just to try to piss him off.

"Down deep I knew he cared for me. For years … and it scared the shit out of me.

To care back would have threatened my macho image … but I did … and he never knew it … even to the very last. By then it was too late. It's still too late. It'll always be too late … and time is running out for us both."

He changed the subject abruptly.

"You want to know about Gresham, W. T.? You won't believe this. Back about … twenty-some-odd years ago … there was a woman from Pennsylvania who got a referral to my department at Princeton. You were there then, but you had no reason to know about her. Her name was Paula Gresham, and she presented with rapid-onset Multiple Sclerosis. Her husband brought her to see me, and I called Wilson in to consult. I thought there might have been a tumor.

"Making a long story short … the Greshams brought their spoiled brat along. Whiny little moron about ten years old. I had to sit her nasty little ass in the waiting room so I could talk with her parents. She was pissed off as hell at me. But Wilson made goo goo eyes at her … you know how he used to do that with his cancer kids …"

At this point, Leather's eyes filled again, and it was difficult for him to go on. I knew where he was going with it, but I waited. He needed to say it out loud.

I thought: This is the same kid from all those years ago. So why hasn't she figured out who he is? Does she still think they're both dead? Some people do …

"Anyway, after that the brat was bearable. Wilson gave her some books to look at and gave her a pep talk … and she was pie-eyed over him from then on.

"Her Mom improved because we tried some drastic methods. After the MRI and the spinal tap and the EEG … all that stuff … we experimented with the usual methods

they always try … Baclofen, Copaxone, Neurontin. Then we went with experimental drugs and Plasmapheresis … get rid of the antibodies and start over. She responded.

But we had to keep regulating, and ended up treating her with a lot of edgy stuff for a couple of years.

"Then their insurance ran out and we lost touch. I looked back in my old files the other day, and confirmed that this kid who's working for me in the Spider Banks is the same kid."

Leather sighed and stopped talking for a minute. I saw him rubbing the knuckles of his right hand, and spied the healing abrasions and the swelling and the fading antiseptic. He snorted a shot of sardonic laughter. "Got into an argument with the wall when I found out who she was.

"But I suppose I'll be punching it again when she finds out who _I_ am … and she will. She's sharp as a tack, dammit ..."

"And Dr. James Wilson … the man she hero-worshipped … sits in a mechanical bed at your brother's nursing home … trying like hell to die. He's the only reason I'm still hangin' on, Billy. He's the only thing that keeps me going. I don't dare die before he does … because then he'd have nothing. No one. His folks are dead, and that son of a bitch, Tom, ran off to California rather than have to look at him. All Jimmy's got now is this other sick, crippled old son of a bitch who can't let go.

"He looks and acts like a stalk of celery and breathes like a nag with the heaves. I would give anything … _anything_ … just to hear the sound of his voice say my name one more time …"

"God, Billy. I don't know how much longer I can keep it going. And I never even told him how much he means to me …"

Sitting there beside my friend, I bowed my head and discovered that tears were running unashamedly down my own face. It was almost like realizing I'd been standing in the rain.

"Please don't torture yourself like this," I finally said. "He wouldn't like it … and you know how he gets when he's upset with you. None of this was your fault, Boss.

"How about if you let me drive you home … make you something to eat … and we watch a ball game or something. Jimmy would be so pissed off at you right now …"

Leather looked up at me cautiously. His face was blotched with emotion, but his eyes were dry. Every day this man lived was another day for me to marvel at his inner strength.

He sniffed shallowly and a corner of his mouth turned upward.

"You're not ashamed to be around me?"

I shook my head. "No, Man ..."

He let me help him to his feet, but he shook off my hand and walked up the aisle of the auditorium himself. With the cane in his left hand, it hurt to watch him.

We left his old Edinburgh in the parking lot where it was and took my Passat all-wheel drive, with the reclining front seat, to his place.

We walked in and tossed our jackets out of the way. We watched a fumble-fingers football game between East Podunk, Iowa, and Bum-fuck, Minnesota. I made us grilled cheese sandwiches and canned tomato soup. He told me, tongue-in-cheek, that Wilson used to make him the same thing …

… only better.

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88


	17. Chapter 17

"Whisper of the Wind"

Chapter 17

"All the Roads Lead Home"

June 2008

House and Wilson:

"House, how the hell can you ask me that?"

Poor Jimmy Wilson! His face was as pale as the sky before a storm. He sat with his back propped wearily against the other side of the mezzanine banister, the half that hadn't been torn out by the roots. There were two men in business suits squatting in front of him with determined looks on their faces, as though they thought he might get up and try to run away at any moment.

But Wilson wasn't going anywhere. He was missing his right shoe, the pant leg yanked far enough over his foot to make it appear that the foot had been amputated. His sports jacket sagged half off his shoulder, lining torn loose from the heavier fabric. His tawny hair spilled over his face and he was nursing a nasty wood cut on his hand. He was still breathing heavily, eyes still wild; their sable pupils distended and pitch black.

House rolled the wheelchair over beside his friend and stared closely at the look on Wilson's pale countenance.

"Christ!" He growled. "I thought you were shot! What happened to your hand? You're bleeding all over yourself. Where is your shoe? Are you all right? _Can _you get up?"

It was the closest thing to worry that Wilson had seen on House's face in a long time.

"I'm okay," he said at last. "Really." He was trying to be reassuring, but his words were thready and uncertain. "I'm just … a little weak in the knees. The cut on my hand is superficial, and I think it was you who pulled my shoe off. It's over there somewhere.

"House … a man just _died!" _ His voice was strained and edged with horror.

Gregory House was silent for a few moments. He turned the wheelchair around with a swift lateral movement and stopped it by Wilson's other side, causing everyone to scramble quickly out of his way before he ran them over like pieces of carpet.

House paid little attention to the plain-clothes cops who were now concentrating on Wilson. When he'd told them his name minutes ago, they hardly seemed to be paying attention. They had barely identified themselves, but they _were_ paying attention to Jimmy! From their expressions, they looked as though they suspected Wilson harbored something sinister about the incident with the broken railing.

House got into their faces and interrupted harshly. "They had to keep that moron from shooting somebody. What happened was way beyond anyone's control." He purposely refrained from mentioning his own involvement in the takedown of the gunman, and he hoped Wilson and the others were astute enough to keep quiet. It would be entirely too easy to turn this into a farce with a "heroic cripple".

"It was an _accident!"_

Gregg decided now was the time to play the 'cripple card' for all it was worth. If they

were going to dismiss him as an inconsequential cripple, then he would live up to their expectations. He found that he was half relieved and half insulted that they had dismissed him so quickly.

"We're not finished investigating yet," the taller of the suits was saying. Both of them stood aside and glared at House, whose averted face assumed a pained expression. They both pulled I. D. wallets with gold shields and held them out again. "I'm Kelley and this is Pereski, NYPD. Now you know who we are. Who are you, and what do you have to do with all this?"

One of them was short and dumpy, the other tall and thin. In his mind, House thought of them as Bud and Lou. He looked angrily from one of them to the other, but said nothing.

"Nobody's stories here seem to jibe," Kelley continued, not waiting for an answer. "We have six people standing around who saw everything, or were directly involved, and nobody can agree on what actually happened. Like I asked before … who are you? Do you know this man?" He indicated Wilson. "Can you vouch that he's who he says he is?" The cop looked pointedly at House's wheelchair.

House snorted. "I'm Dr. House. And I told you that before too! This was a fucking _accident!"_

Typical police procedure, House thought: jump to conclusions. Hit on the most likely suspect because they had to have someone to blame. Pick on the poor boob who looked like he'd been beaten up by a street gang. Hit on the guy who was bleeding. Hit him again and leave spots of blood on two levels instead of one.

"Did you ask him for an I. D.? He is who he says he is … trust me! Ever stop to think that it happened so fast, nobody had a chance to see much of anything except bodies flying in the air or mopping up the floor? Darth Vader got knocked against the banister. The banister broke and he took a swan dive out over the edge, along with his light saber.

"Luke Skywalker here almost went over with him. Two guys pulled ol' Luke back. End of story. This isn't a murder mystery, gentlemen. Starsky and Hutch you ain't! More like Abbott and Costello."

House allowed his chin to lower to his chest and slowly turned the wheelchair away from the cops who were looking after him in a glare of resentment. Damn cops! Like bulldogs, they just didn't back off. As the chair turned away, House allowed his right foot to slip off the footrest so that his sneaker impacted the floor with a slap. The action sent an electrical surge along the ruined nerve pathways into his thigh, and he flinched upward for a moment. But he was prepared for it because his action had been faked.

He hunched forward pitifully and let out a painful howl. "Aghhhh …" Both hands flew to his damaged leg, and he clamped his fingers around it with a grip of iron. Untended, the chair began to roll toward the elevators with him in it.

In a heartbeat, Wilson was on his feet and across the floor, not sure whether House was giving one of his Oscar-winning performances, or if he'd really hurt himself. Wilson leaned over the wheelchair and applied the brakes. "House?"

The scruffy face turned to the side that faced away from the people behind them. There was a twinkle in the blue eyes, and House's mouth turned upward slightly at one corner.

Wilson frowned, then rolled his eyes in relief and straightened again. His bloody hand descended onto his friend's shoulder and clenched the tendons with surprising strength. House got the message loud and clear. He winced beneath the warning pinch.

Oww! Son of a bitch! I thought he knew I was faking. Guess not …

The interrogation concluded quickly as House continued to moan pitifully.

They inspected Wilson's injured hand and ordered him to seek first aid, forgetting for a moment that he was a doctor himself. They swabbed the witness's mouths and the mouth of Dr. Ralph Armstad, the man whom Darth Vader had accused of stealing his work. They swabbed House as he writhed in the wheelchair, and they closely watched the others who waited patiently for this to be over. Finally they let Wilson get behind the wheelchair to wheel House back to their room.

Both policemen disappeared dramatically down the steps and out the front door with their "evidence". They had dutifully filled their little notebook and their tiny electronic recorder with eyewitness accounts, not one of which agreed with any of the others. They did finally admit that the incident had, in actuality, been unavoidable.

As it turned out later, Dr. Armstad really _had_ been using his colleague's notes for quite some time, but with the man's knowledge and permission. He'd made a dramatic breakthrough using both their research projects as a base. One night Armstead finally hacked into Daniel Shepherd's computer and downloaded everything that remained.

.

As a result, Shepherd went over the edge, went out and bought a gun. The rest was history.

House and Wilson finally got back to their room about 10:00 p.m. They were tired and aching. During the excitement and the hours filled with distractions, House had skipped his meds for an entire day. His leg was not happy. Neither was the shoulder that hit the floor first when he'd heaved himself out of the wheelchair.

Wilson was still disheveled and bloody, but at least he had found his shoe.

House decided he might give his friend a moment of medical attention and maybe even a sympathetic ear. When Gregg House told James Wilson he would fix his hand, Wilson thought he might actually faint dead away!

A message awaited in their room, telling them that the rest of the conference had been cancelled due to circumstances, and Dr. House was relieved of his obligation to speak at the banquet, which had been cancelled also, by the way. The Best Western sent its regrets … blah blah blah …

They showered and took time to catch their breaths. House administered to Wilson's hand carefully, using all his medical skills. His friend had a deep and nasty laceration between the second and third fingers of his hand.

James sat with a scrunched, pained look on his face, but held still with great effort and patiently watched while House fussed and fumed and swore and daubed.

Finally, Gregg fashioned a pad of gauze that he could fit comfortably, after a fashion, between Wilson's fingers. He wrapped the fingers together with a length of adhesive tape, much the same way Wilson had done for him the time he'd smashed his fingers with the pestle.

"You're gonna have that looked at when we get home, Buckaroo!" He groused. "You need stitches, and it's in a damn awkward place. How does it feel? Want a Vicodin?"

House had taken two of them himself, and had made no overt move to get out of the wheelchair. Wilson made a wisecrack about the two of them making a dandy pair, and declined the Vicodin.

Two old soldiers on the battlefield of life, they ordered sandwiches and beer from room service. They watched a half hour of some obscure documentary on the History Channel, and turned in just past midnight. Neither of them felt very well, and it showed.

"Maybe we can sleep a little later in the morning," Wilson suggested. "We can get out of here about noon and take our time driving home. I still want to take you out somewhere for your birthday. Do you think you can walk okay with the cane tomorrow? I can buy the wheelchair from the hotel if you think it would be better …"

House interrupted him with a snort that was a combination of pure exasperation and begrudging affection.

"You make one more freakin' suggestion like that, Wilson, and I'm gonna ram this cane right up your ass! I'm fine. Good night!"

Wilson smiled into his pillow. "Good night, House. I love you too."

House sighed quietly to himself.

I know …

#

93


	18. Chapter 18

"Whisper of the Wind"

Chapter 18

"Somewhere A Nightingale Sings"

Christmas Eve 2024

Gresham:

Home wasn't home anymore.

Well, it was, but there were glaring differences. The house was uncluttered and the carpets were gone. There were wonderful smells coming from the kitchen that I couldn't identify right away. But they told me mom hadn't lost her culinary touch. The downstairs, once filled with mementos and souvenirs, had been sterilized; childhood treasures and picture books packed carefully in cardboard boxes and probably stored in the attic. An entire wall at the rear of the big enclosed back porch was now filled with shelves of plastic bins containing chipped knick-knacks and worn-out toys that I had fingered lovingly when I was a child.

Everything before my eyes was another concession to Multiple Sclerosis. And it was gaining. Mom now rode a mechanical wheelchair like a general in an Army Jeep. The days of mobility given her by Dr. House and Dr. Wilson had run their course and ended. She was handling it. They both were. Instinct told me mom and dad had known the changes were coming. They had not wanted to spoil my first days in medical school with worries over this shadowy disease.

What was now their bedroom had once been the den. Even the counters in the kitchen had been lowered by six inches. As we wandered through the house, my first visit in more than three months, they questioned me with their eyes. Would I forgive them for their lies of silence?

Of course I would.

The people on the staff were running the farm now, and conducting the animal husbandry projects. Dad's assistants were doing the grain and environmental experiments, and he was doing all the record-keeping and all the computations and all the money handling, and all the payroll and all the taxes … and riding herd on mom. It was a full time job and then some. They were both thriving.

They did not use the second and third floors anymore, except for storage. My bedroom at the top of the stairs, though, had been left undisturbed. I stowed my gear there, looked around for a moment, and pulled _the book _out of my backpack. I then closed the door and went back downstairs.

Christmas decorations were hung from the archways between rooms, and draped upon curtains and furniture. Tiny glass birds with silver plumage were fastened to the boughs of pine that graced the walls and the shades of every lamp. There was no big Christmas tree to take up floor space, but the signs of the season were everywhere. Pine greenery smelled like a small slice of heaven, and as it mixed with the smells of dinner, I realized how hungry I was for home cooking. My senses took it all in with growing appreciation.

The downstairs had taken on the look of quaint country simplicity, and I was surprised to note, belatedly, that the doorways had all been widened. Cool! The ground floor was plenty big enough for just the two of them, and they'd had accommodations tastefully incorporated when they knew I was too far away and much too busy to be preoccupied by the transformation of my childhood home. Somehow, it looked as though Santa Claus had already been here and gone. The little glass birds were messengers of peace on Earth and all that … and in my imagination I could hear the faint lilt of song. There were gifts on an end table and a platter of cookies with decorative sprinkles on the one small item of furniture that hadn't disappeared: the coffee table.

Mom and dad were waiting for me in the kitchen.

Mom looked so pretty. She was thinner now than she used to be, but the Ship'n'Shore blouses she'd been wearing since she was my age, did something for her figure that no amount of primping did for mine. Her dark hair was short now, and its natural curl formed a feathery cap about her face. Her eyes had not lost their sparkle, and looked like my own … something like light brown with flakes of green.

She winked at me and smiled, and I winked and smiled back.

Dad's straw-stackey blondish hair was a lot like my hair! Which is the reason I keep it back in the French braid. If I didn't, I would probably look like Carrot Top, that freaky looking old comedian. My dad is a big guy. Not as big as Billy Travis, nor as tall as Leather … but he's a hunk. He used to pick up my mom and carry her around like a big doll. He probably still does. I could remember a time when he would swing me up and onto his shoulders and carry me around like a sack of grain … and I would scream with delight at the tops of my lungs and giggle and hold onto his ears until he grimaced in pain. But he never gave me grief over it. Dad and I were solid.

I walked over to the table and pulled out the same chair I had used from the time I was three. I placed the Princeton-Plainsboro book in front of my place and sat down. "It's really good to be home," I said. "This house looks like something out of a fairy tale."

"Thanks," dad said. "We hoped you would like it. It's much easier for your mother to move around in here now." Their eyes were on the book, and both looked at it with recognition.

"What's that?" Mom asked me, although I could see that she already had a good idea. "It's been a long time since I saw those old buildings …"

"It's for you both," I told her. "There's a copy of it in the library at school, and as soon as I saw it, it took me way back … to my schoolgirl crush on Dr. Wilson … and the times I used to go along to Princeton with you for your appointments with him and Dr. House. So I ordered a copy for you for Christmas."

I went on to tell them that there was a two-page spread in the center of the book that included a copy of the photograph I had in my dorm room of those two handsome doctors, looking as though they were sharing a private joke …

I saw my parents glance at one another with strange expressions on their faces, which they thought I hadn't noticed. Dad reached for the volume and opened it, pressing down gently on the spine and fending off any questions I might have asked. "I remember a few of these people," he said quietly, paging through. The photographs that were included within the text were beautiful representations of the hospital's staff and a few of its patrons and contributors, and a large one of the Chief Administrator in her office, at her desk.

Seeing her photograph, I was reminded of one time, many years ago. Dr. Cuddy had walked past the room where House and Wilson were talking to my mother. Wilson smiled gently and said to House: "Better watch it, House … the boss is checking up on us."

House had tilted his head and peered at his friend with a private smirk. He waggled his shaggy brows and remarked: "Wilson … can you see? I'm shakin' in my shoes!"

There were other shots of the former Dr. Cuddy, the former Dr. Cameron, the others of the diagnostics team, handsome Dr. Wilson, and stern Dr. House. And others, of course, whom I had never met, nor had had any occasion to meet. I had not looked at the book this closely before, and my eyes settled at once on the beautiful eyes of Dr. Wilson, and the tiny smile of amusement that quirked the corners of his generous mouth. The close-up of his face gave away the fact that he still had that telltale "milk" bulge in the middle of his upper lip that usually disappeared by the time a child was two or three months old. It made me smile. He was indeed a "Baby Face".

Dr. House, conversely, was a very different type of handsome. His look was grave, ill at ease with having a camera shoved in his face. Intolerant of anything or anyone invading his personal space. His eyes were large and revealing in a way that brooked no patience for intrusion or silent sympathy. His infirmity was a forbidden subject. He was a stern patriarch, in total control of every situation. No one messed with this man without consequence.

It was a façade. He had showed me that once, and I had remembered it.

House was Holmes to Wilson's Watson. He was Robin of Loxley to Wilson's Will Scarlett. He was the bold wind that blew down to a breeze before Wilson's calming influence. And Wilson dominated the bluster completely and without effort. If one looked closely enough, there were calmer waters beneath the ice-blue breakers that hammered the shore.

I was thinking in metaphors!

My mother pulled her hand away from the pages of the book to lay it gently across my own. "Lynn … you know these men were both killed, don't you?"

I nodded. "Yeah … I heard … quite a few years ago. Some kind of freak accident, wasn't it?"

"Yes."

Dad picked up the conversation and continued. "Not too long after your mother and I stopped going to Princeton-Plainsboro, they died in a tragic traffic accident that killed almost a dozen people that day. It was awful, and it was all over the papers and TV. There was a nasty shadow that hung over Dr. Wilson's head for a while afterward. But nothing ever came of it."

I looked up, perplexed. "What do you mean?"

"There was a death at a conference they attended in New York City," Dad replied. "A lot of controversy. The press got hold of it and made a circus of it. There was going to be a police investigation, but when they were killed on the highway, it all fell apart.

"The cops never did get the full story. Only what some guy accused Dr. Wilson of later. Nothing was ever proven. None of Wilson's family ever came forward. Neither did House's. They weren't there. They didn't know. And they've all been dead a long time."

"Even the man who accused Dr. Wilson?" I asked.

"He disappeared. And nobody knows where the two doctors are buried, or who took care of the arrangements. I guess no one will ever know. It's a moot subject."

I had not heard about any accusations before. The conversation halted abruptly. The last rays of the afternoon sun glinted off the sides of the tiny glass birds. Within my mind they chirped plaintively.

I had wanted to tell them about Billy Travis … and about the strange and fascinating man called "Leather" … but the opportunity never arose. At least not then!

And that was how my Christmas vacation began my first year in medical school. If only I had known then what I know now …

Mountain View, Christmas 2024

Leather:

As far as I could tell, he hadn't moved; hadn't blinked an eye since the last time I'd visited the month before. He looked the same. Snowy white hair fell forward in an avalanche over the still-dark eyebrows. His eyes remained that haunted deep brown … and just as vacant.

He was thinner. He was _always_ thinner. If he weren't anchored to the bed, he might have blown away with the first stiff wind that stirred. _If_ such a thing as a wind ever stirred along that long, immaculate corridor.

There was a garland of greens with pinecones encircling his open doorway, and red ribbons tied in bows fastened to it every few inches. And birds. Tiny silver glass Christmas birds that reflected red highlights from the ribbons, and the light from the window. It smelled a little woodsy, and took away some of the damned antiseptic smell of the place.

He acknowledged none of it. How could he?

I didn't bring him a gift. It would have been useless. The only thing I'd brought him for Christmas was … me.

Shirley Appel and Jeremy Elton were with him when I stuck my head in the door and took a deep sniff of the pine fragrance.

"Hi, Doc," Shirley said. She and Jeremy both knew who I really was … and who Whitey really was. Always had … but out of long and loyal acquaintance, they made sure no one else did.

Except Whit Travis … and he owned the place. And the secrecy was his idea, because he harbored a few secrets of his own.

I nodded to them and rolled on into the room. Words were not needed. They both rose from their chairs. Shirley went to Whitey and adjusted and checked his IVs. Ran her fingers uselessly through the white hair and pushed it back from his brow. It promptly fell back again, and I had to smile at that. These things never changed.

Jeremy handed me a sterile hand-wipe, then stood by while I opened it, used it and then handed it back.

I had left my cane at the nurse's station and settled into one of the sterile wheelchairs. I wheeled myself back the hallway, relieved not to have to walk. My leg was a bitch again today, and it was getting more and more difficult to get it to cooperate all the way back to Whitey's room. Jeremy seemed to understand, and lifted the right leg rest a few inches for me in order to ease it.

I nodded my thanks. He nodded back.

When they left, I rolled across to the opposite side of the bed where there were no IV stanchions and no lengths of rubber tubing to get in the way. I pulled as close to him as the chair would allow, and reached immediately for his cold, arthritic hands, gathering them gently into my own.

_Hi Wilson._

There was no movement, just his steady breathing, the only real indication that told me he was still alive.

I was getting to be a sentimental fool in my old age. I felt the odd prickle behind my eyes that warned me I was going to weep. Alone with him, and knowing the PING was turned off, I let it happen.

My tears fell briefly for the wasted years, the unspoken words, the too-long-withheld sentiments I should have shared with this man a long time ago.

He had shared his feelings for me in the only way I would allow it. He remained at my side after everyone else had given up. He had pushed down all the things he wanted to say to me until they had become so knotted inside that they almost choked him. He watched out for me and protected me from my worst enemy: myself. And he had never asked for anything in return.

What had I given him? Grief and heartache. Too stubborn and too frightened of the consequences to trust him and try to give back even a fraction of what he so unselfishly gave me, I exploited him and called him a girl. I used and abused him and took unfair advantage of his good nature and did not allow him to get close. I feared his pity, his desire to make my life as free of pain as it was within his power to do so. I pushed him away until he didn't dare verbalize the fact that he cared.

He would rail at me, and scream and holler and demand that I take a good look at myself in the mirror. He would flail his hands in the air and get red in the face and accuse me of enjoying the fact that I was miserable.

I would walk away and turn him off like a screechy radio. I never gave him the satisfaction that I knew he was right all along.

And in my stupidity, I never acknowledged that, deep in my dirty black heart, I loved him as well.

I blew it.

And then I lost the dearest thing that had ever touched my life. Now that he couldn't hear me anymore, or ever again understand what he had meant to me, I held him close and felt the sting of hot and angry tears …

_Useless old fool! What have you done?_

I closed my eyes and placed a quick kiss on the side of his face, then sat up. As I did so, I felt moisture on my lips. I sat back and studied him a little closer.

His eyes were brimming. Those vacant eyes with the large black pupils were filled with tears, which should not have been there.

For long moments I gaped. Like someone whose intellect had suddenly gone blank. Like the man in front of me whose mind had taken leave of his body years before.

And then I scrambled out of that wheelchair, willing my feet to take wings. I ran to the doorway and screamed for Shirley Appel and Jeremy Elton.

"Get in here!"

Somewhere … as their footsteps came pummeling down the hallway … I thought I heard the faint notes of a bird … singing …

#

100


	19. Chapter 19

"Whisper of the Wind"

Chapter 19

"As the Wheels Turn"

The Day …

June 2008:

Joe Callucci closed the gate behind him and walked boldly up to the Cessna Skyhawk standing ready on the apron in front of the hangar. He was wearing a tan Dickies work coverall with the horseshoe logo on the pocket. In his left hand he held a small metal toolbox that had seen better days. He'd had it since he was a teenager. On his head, and pulled well down over his dark eyebrows, a matching billed cap, combined with his thin stature, threw his identity into the category of almost total androgyny.

On an early Sunday morning such as this one, not too many civilian hobbyist pilots were up and about yet. Those who were, were not in the least curious about another "weekend warrior" with a toolbox, setting about getting his plane prepped for a Sunday excursion.

Joe looked about surreptitiously and took into swift account that no one seemed even remotely interested in his actions or his purposes. He rolled his shoulders and relaxed, then set the toolbox down on the tarmac and unlatched the lid. He pulled on a pair of work gloves and got busy.

It was a little after 7:00 a.m., and Jerry Waltham planned to show up here with his girlfriend about 9:00. It should take only a few short minutes to make "adjustments", Joe

Callucci thought triumphantly, to throw their plans into the toilet and humiliate them both as well.

_Good for 'em!_

The cowl that covered the engine of the Skyhawk was fastened with two catches set into the fuselage in a manner that would cause the least amount of drag when the plane was in the air. In his long experience as a mechanic, Joe had seen the setup hundreds of times. Racecars used a similar arrangement to fasten down their hoods and button up their rear access. It did not take him long to lay back the cowl and expose the tight little engine to his intense scrutiny.

Gaining access to the lateral arms that connected to rudder, elevator and ailerons was no problem. He could tell the difference just by reaching in there with his fingertips. Each connection was fastened to its main shaft with a medium-duty cotter pin, which gave strength and flexibility to the control shaft. Joe picked a pair of rubber-insulated needle-nose pliers from the little toolbox, and inserted them into the gap between rudder and elevator. A small twist to the right on one side and to the left on the other, and the cotter pin came loose to the point that it would slide out of place before the plane ever left the ground. Later examination of the problem would not point to sabotage, because no metallic teeth-marks would be left behind to point an accusing finger. A broken cotter pin was a broken cotter pin …

The plane would veer off the runway and into the tall grass, bog down in the mud or break a wheel strut and roll over on its wing and break something else, imminently more important. Brother-in-law Jerry Waltham and his homely little bleach-blonde paramour would have some tall explaining to do, and the local press would probably have a field day with their utter embarrassment.

"They were married," read the headlines in Joe's imagination, "but not to each other!"

Joe Callucci refastened the cowl of the Skyhawk carefully, feeling some small regret at having to inflict damage on such a nice little craft. But Jerry Boy had a price to pay for being such an ass, and for Wanda to find out about it this way would be much more effective than anything Joe could say to convince her.

He had checked out the Holiday Inn yesterday, and sat in the bar with a beer or two in front of him, shooting the shit with a few businessmen on lunch break. They were obviously regulars, and a few minutes of idle conversation assured him that the slim blonde waitress with the big behind was indeed the woman he'd been curious about.

After the businessmen left and went on their way, Joe Callucci lingered awhile longer. Then he left "Suzanne" a generous tip and walked, whistling, back to the parking lot where he'd left his Dodge Ram. He would be back tomorrow to "repair" the Cessna Skyhawk.

And so it had transpired.

Now, Joe pulled a clean rag from the little toolbox and meticulously wiped down the buttercup-yellow paint of the Cessna and wiped off any vestiges of grease and soil from the pliers. He disposed of the small rag in one of the waste bins near the perimeter behind him, removed his gloves, replaced them in the toolbox, latched it, and retreated back the way he had come. No one paid him a moment's attention.

He went back through the gate and walked to his truck. He stowed the toolbox in the utility compartment and climbed into the cab to wait. Jerry and Suzanne should be along shortly.

They were later than nine. They didn't arrive until after ten a.m. and Joe was getting antsy. He had uncomfortable thoughts of someone else getting into that plane instead, and running it into the weeds beside the runway …

_Shit!_

But here they came! Finally. It was almost 10:30. Joe heaved a sigh of relief and hunkered down behind the steering wheel. They didn't see him. They were too full of each other to notice whether it was cloudy or sunny, snowing or blowing or drenching them with hurricane winds. They parked on the tarmac beside the hangar and ran hand-in-hand to the Cessna Skyhawk.

Joe watched as Jerry started up the plane and engaged in leisurely pre-flight checks. He revved the engine, tested the pedals, moved the flaps, the rudder, the aileron. Joe held his breath. Then Jerry checked with the tower and taxied slowly out onto the runway.

Waited for confirmation … paused … let off the brake and …

Joe waited for something to give. Waited for the plane to veer off the runway, roll off the edge and stagger drunkenly into the grass. Come to a halt, or lurch about in tight little circles … maybe topple over onto the tip of one wing.

It didn't happen. The tail of the graceful Skyhawk came up level as the air began to buoy her. She leveled out and quickly gathered speed. Then her nose lifted off the ground and she was in the air … circling the field once, like a swan gaining altitude, and then she began to head out on a southwesterly course toward New York City.

Joe Callucci sat in his pickup truck and watched until the airplane was swallowed by distance and the glare of the noonday sky. His chin dropped to his chest. His ears rang. His throat was dry, and a sense of horror was mounting in the place where his heart was beating heavily against his ribcage.

Had he just committed murder?

He could not move, could not breathe. He sat behind the wheel of his truck, hands gripping the fancy leather cover until they were without feeling, without sensation.

There was a shopping center directly across the street from the luxury apartment of Luanna Malu. At least, they had been luxury apartments ten years before … before the tract of farmland had been sold to Bio-Tek Enterprises.

Now Luanna's front window had a full view of Boscov's Department Store, NAPA Auto Parts, T. G. I. Friday's, Target, Food Lion Markets and a Dollar General. Plus a few small splinter stores that flanked the rim of the huge plot and made the whole plaza resemble an overblown circle of Conestoga wagons.

The screeching of tires and the blaring of horns and voices was an everyday nuisance in the local neighborhood now, but the apartment residents had no choice but to get used to it. After a time, most of them came to view it as a small inconvenience … sort of.

Hualu Hualu Malu parked his rig at the rim of the outer lot, nearest the street across from his mother's place, and walked across to her apartment. It was 8:00 a.m. on Sunday morning, and he still had some time to kill before he should get underway to the New York Port Authority terminal with the load he must deliver tomorrow.

His mother had screamed with delight and thrown her arms about the shoulders of her strapping, handsome son. She hadn't seen him for awhile, and the surprise visit turned her tiny body into a whirlwind of maternal excitement.

She called him "Ho-Lu" as she had done since he was an infant, and set about leading him into the kitchen, resplendent with mouthwatering aromas and evidence everywhere of Hawaiian cuisine and lavish, ongoing home cooking.

Hualu Hualu sat himself down at the kitchen table where a tall glass of pineapple iced tea appeared before him, garnished with lemon and pineapple slices and sprigs of fresh mint.

He grinned in appreciation and winked at his mom.

"Ahh … Mama … you do so read my mind!" He took a long draught and smacked his lips appreciatively. Delicious! So badly missed in this world of pizzas and hot dogs and Doritos and beer …

Luanna sat down opposite him with her own drink. It was so good just to be able to look into his huge dark eyes again, and feel his presence in her home. She had been so proud of him when he graduated from Penn State very near the top of his class. Now she awaited the time when his lust for high adventure drained from his blood and the two of them could move back again to the native islands.

Ho-Lu knew his mother longed for the blue waters and the swaying palms and the trade winds of the Leeward Islands. He knew that only his ongoing thirst to experience the call of the Mainland was holding them back.

He was her only child, her only remaining sense of wonder and joy since the death of his father when he was seventeen. Luanna made a comfortable living as a creator of ads for a local television station, but even this fascinating work occupied only a small part of her talents, and a distant back seat to the lure of the Hawaiian Islands. He hoped she would hold out for him one more year.

He still wanted to see the southeastern portion of the continental USA. Then they would return home, and he would transform himself into that Agricultural Agent and perhaps settle down with wife and children … the things his mother wished for, but would never admit … or urge him about.

He was indeed a lucky man, and he loved her more than he could admit, even to himself.

Ho-Lu lingered with Luanna in the apartment across from the busy shopping center in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, until at last it was time for him to depart for New York.

He took his leave from her at last with a full belly … and hugs and kisses.

And when he climbed into the Peterbilt, he blew the loud air horn and waved to her with a large smile and a floating kiss.

Then he pulled onto the street and began his journey to New York … and to the destiny that lay waiting for him …

"Wilson, do you want me to drive? My leg's fine. And your hand is bloody again …"

James Wilson glanced from the darkening bandage between the middle and third fingers of his left hand to House's craggy face, distorted now, with effrontery and barely concealed condescension.

This was the second bandage that House had clumsily fashioned to stop the blood from seeping between his fingers from the wood cut he'd suffered while scrambling away from disaster on the broken balcony railing.

A minor cut, compared to a bum leg that was barely functioning, did not a valid argument make, to Wilson's way of thinking. He muttered something barely comprehensible and glared across at his friend in exasperation. "House, would you kindly shut your pie hole and sit still and listen to me?"

House's eyebrows went to great heights and the blue eyes narrowed to slits. "What now?" He was in his underwear and sitting on his rumpled bed with the leg in question stretched out before him. Both hands encircled the upper region of his thigh.

Wilson could see nerve spasms jolt the thin skin near the large scar on House's leg. "Look at you, dammit! You won't let me keep the wheelchair, so I have to watch you like a hawk to keep you from going on your ass. Every time I have to make a grab for you, it splits open the cut on my hand … so naturally it starts to bleed again. You want to get the hell out of here before the police show up again to ask more damned questions, and so do I. I feel really crappy about what happened, but there's nothing we can do about it. We told them everything we know, and now it's time to leave."

House's head lowered suddenly. And he grew quiet. "Yeah …" he admitted finally. "You're right. Sorry. I just thought you might be hurting. Your hand can't be very comfortable …"

Wilson found himself at a loss for words. House had just granted another concession that was highly out of character for him. He had now shown compassion twice for someone else, and it threw Wilson for a loop. "Thanks." He said with embarrassment. "But it's only a cut. Your leg has been giving you trouble for three days. I can drive. I _am_ driving!" His boyish face took on a look of mischief. He could not allow House to regain the upper hand.

"Unless you're afraid my tainted Jewish blood might leak out and mess up the expensive mahogany inlaid steering wheel of that luxury sedan we're traveling in …"

House's head came up with a snap. "Nice one, Jimmy! Very nice." He snorted, back to his usual sarcasm. He withdrew his hands from around his leg. "Let's get dressed and get the fuck out of here."

They got dressed, got packed, went to the lobby and checked out. House bought one of the local newspapers from the kiosk in the corner. Wilson managed their luggage and House limped heavily behind.

When the old Dynasty, with Wilson at the wheel, pulled out of the underground garage, two police black-and-whites pulled up at the main entrance. Wilson turned the car in the opposite direction and headed for the Lincoln Tunnel.

House was reading the paper. Pretending not to have seen the cop cars. Dark headlines screamed across the front page, along with a grainy photograph of a gurney carrying a black rubber body bag out the hotel's front door.

House quoted:

"MURDER AND MAYHEM AT THE BEST WESTERN IN MANHATTAN:

NEW JERSEY DOCTOR ABSOLVED OF RESPONSIBILITY – BUT QUESTIONS REMAIN."

Wilson's face wrinkled with puzzlement. "What questions?"

House continued to quote: "Dr. Ralph Armstad, Vermont researcher, hints that New Jersey Oncologist could be complicit in the death of colleague over stolen research papers …"

Both doctors' faces went white. "What??"

#

107


	20. Chapter 20

"Whisper of the Wind"

Chapter 20

"Who ARE You?"

December 25, 2024

Gresham:

I hadn't meant to intrude. Or eavesdrop. I came downstairs only with the intention of pulling a bottle of cold water out of the fridge, and maybe a chunk of leftover Christmas turkey, and then heading back up to my bedroom.

Soft moonlight filtered through the windows and lifted shadows from walls and stair steps. I was treading softly because mom and dad's bedroom was down here and I didn't want to wake them. It was almost 1:00 a.m.

I got the water and a substantial chunk of cold turkey and was ready to go back up the steps. Then the big refrigerator's compressor shut off. Late-night silence magnified and became oppressive all around me. Soft voices sifting through the darkness stopped me in my tracks, and I found myself feeling a little guilty for no reason. Afraid of stepping on the wrong floorboard and giving myself away, I froze like a thief in the night.

I stopped chewing …

And listened.

"Do you really think it might be the same man?" Mom's voice was low, but I had no trouble hearing her words.

"The thought did occur to me," Dad replied. "He was a lot younger then. The build is pretty much the same as I remember it. Maybe a little heavier. And the skin coloring … I remember him being very dark. I have no idea what became of him after the … accident. He kind of dropped out of sight. Took a long leave of absence, so they say. But I never heard whether he went back there or not. By the time it happened, your treatments had already been finished up for a few months."

After a short pause, my mother's voice spoke again. "He worked closely with Jimmy and Gregg, dear. Every time I went for an evaluation, he was right there wherever those two were. He used to call me 'Polly", remember? He did the BP, the phlebotomy … all the scut stuff. It was almost like he was protecting them. I thought some of it might have been because of Gregg's infirmity …

"The day Gregory House told me I was okay without the wheelchair, Bill took it and ran it smack into the cement block wall at the end of the corridor. We both sat there and laughed when the pieces flew off it.

"Jimmy Wilson thought we were crazy … but Gregg loved it. I remember him looking at his cane and saying: 'I sure wish I could do that with this!' I felt so sorry for him."

As my parents spoke, the little wheels were turning furiously inside my head. Were they talking about Billy Travis? If they were, then how and why had he ended up here in Michigan? Why hadn't he mentioned that he remembered them? Did he?

Struggling to make sense of their conversation, I couldn't quite figure out the connection between what Billy might have been to Dr. Wilson and Dr. House years before … and what he was to Leather now. My thoughts about the symbiosis thing last week in the auditorium jarred back. Leather's kinship to the piano … and Billy's fierce shielding of him from me … or anything else that might harm him. Strange! Was that what it was? Or was Billy just a parasitic man who attached himself to a more accomplished and more complicated person for some reason?

No! Impossible. It went right back to the symbiotic relationship. Billy was at Leather's side for Leather's sake … not for any personal gain of his own. He had told me that Leather's health was precarious, and they were friends. He "took care" of the older man because of some kind of personal indebtedness … and because it gave him pleasure and satisfaction to do so. Never would I believe otherwise.

I tuned in once again to my parents' conversation.

"Bill was devastated when they were killed," Mom was saying. "He couldn't work, couldn't function. Didn't he make arrangements for Dr. House to be cremated? Dr. Wilson still had family then, but I don't know what happened to them after that. We heard that poor Jimmy died in a hospice somewhere a few weeks later. Remember? He never regained consciousness. Dr. House never recovered from his injuries, but I don't know how long after that that he died."

"Yeah, I remember. All the weird stuff that hit the papers about the bogus murder investigation," Dad added. "I guess everything went down the drain after they caught up with the man who accused Wilson … trying for a coverup and spreading a smokescreen to keep the attention off himself."

"I know. It was a shame," Mom said softly. "Jimmy and Gregg were close friends, and they died way before their time. Warren, did you take a close look at the Zai-Zo photos Lynn sneaked us of the guy who looks like Bill … and this other man … Leather? I think she's in love with Leather a little …"

"I know she is. The first time she called, we talked about it some. But then she kind of let it drop. Did you spot anything particularly familiar about those pictures?"

"I'm not sure. The one she took of this fellow called Billy … he's pretty grey, but he still wears cornrows if that's really him. He's certainly tall enough … and the initials are a match. Did you notice Leather's face is the same general shape as Gregg's? But you can't see how tall he is. Sitting at a table with his feet propped up, you can't tell if his legs are okay or not. I didn't see a cane in the picture anywhere …

"The heavy grey beard and mustache, and all those years piled up since then … it throws you off a bit … makes you want to chase shadows that aren't there. But I got the notion that he and Gregg might have passed as father and son … _if_ I didn't know that Dr. House is dead now … and with that heavy beard on his face, I can't tell if Leather has a cleft …"

The refrigerator compressor chose that moment to snap back on again. The low hum was just enough to muffle their voices. I cursed to myself and hugged the wall to the left, straining to hear. The conversation, however, seemed to be over. I heard a moment of soft, private laughter, and then nothing. Whatever they'd said in the three seconds it took to move to a different position had successfully robbed me of any further eavesdropping time.

_Damn!_

Carefully, I sneaked back to my bedroom with my bottle of water and propped myself on the counterpane.

It was warm in the house, and moonlight stamped the walls and ceiling of the room like a classic black and white photograph by Ansel Adams.

I sat for a long time, just staring into the distance …

… and thinking.

And thinking …

January 2, 2025

Leather:

It was a week ago. The night after Christmas.

I nearly had a heart attack when I thought Wilson had come to consciousness. _He was lucid! His mind had miraculously returned to the shell of his body …_

But no. He hadn't. It was a spontaneous neurological reaction. Not unheard of. Shirley and Jeremy had seen it happen twice before. Why hadn't I? I'm a doctor! Why didn't I know?

As I sit here now, thinking about it, I wonder if I'm losing my touch, or have already lost it.

The night I felt his tears on my lips as I kissed his face, it caused a boundless joy within me that screamed I was being given the chance to go back and make up for all my past stupidities and another chance to let him know how much he'd always meant to me.

But no again!

I was propped in the doorway of his room, in physical and emotional agony, grasping the doorframe for balance. I shook like an old engine with the choke full on … my voice rasping from my throat like something demented.

Panicked and incoherent, I was torn between holding onto him … lest his cognition flee if I did not remain at his side … and the desperation of having the miracle I had witnessed confirmed by someone else. That choice sucked the sanity right out of me for long seconds and turned me into a sad, disgusting creature, alarming to look at.

Elton and Appel pounded down the corridor to Whitey's room. Everyone on the floor was alerted. Jeremy Elton halted beside me and grasped my shoulders before I went down in a heap. The humiliation of the situation where I had no strength to even hold myself upright, filled me with loathing and disgust, and I stiffened in his grasp. He understood my reaction full well, because he had been long aware of my stubborn pride.

Jeremy guided me back to the wheelchair in the short passage of time it took for Shirley Appel to reach Whitey's side and check his status. Nothing had changed. Not really. The moisture on his cheeks was drying by then, and he still sat hunched in the bed with his stiff, shiny gnarled hands loose in his lap. Shirley already had a warm, damp cloth and was wiping Whitey's face gently. She adjusted his blankets and checked his catheter and his diaper. I watched in something close to despair as she lowered the head of his bed to the point that he was more lying down than sitting up …

The dark-as-a-cave look in those eyes did not waver or change appreciably. A grim realization came to me that my brain had reduced itself to mush over some tiny chance of a physical impossibility.

I was going to lose it again, and I had to get out of there.

It was like the moment before opening a gate to the Panama Canal, allowing all the water to rush in. I knew I was about to drown myself in my own self-pity … not so much for Whitey, because he couldn't possibly know … but rather in useless regret for years wasted and opportunities gone. I was powerless to dam it up.

I pumped that wheelchair out of the room, catching the big wheels on the doorjamb and careening off the wall. My hands were shaking, my body hunched in a breathless grip of desperation. I cursed myself for a fool and a coward. Blindly I raced down the corridor to the PING station and grabbed my cane from the counter where I'd left it. I put on the brakes and levered myself carefully out of the chair. There were two med-techs manning the consoles. Neither spoke, but stood watching me closely. I summoned the elevator and stepped into it. When the doors closed, the dam broke …

I don't remember getting to the Edinburgh and I don't remember how I got home. But somehow I did.

There was another car waiting in my driveway. A silver Passat. In the driver's seat was Billy Travis, gravely watching me pull in and shut down the engine.

_Oh Christ …give me strength!_

I sat with my head in my hands. Billy's huge hands gripped my shoulders as he lowered to his knees on the ground beside my car. He pulled my head against his chest, ignoring my feeble protests.

My brain kept telling me to get away from him. But I couldn't. My legs were useless. I had not the lung capacity left to make an effort even to get out of the car.

_Get away from me … please! No more sympathy. Leave me alone! Billy, get out of my face! Wilson …where the hell are you when I need you …?_

Travis would not let go. A short distance away, I could sense the looming presence of neighbors at their windows, silently watching. Bearing witness as Billy Travis knelt beside a miserable, self-loathing cripple …

Billy was saying my name over and over again, softly. "Leather … Leather. Easy, man! _Gregory House … listen to me!_ Billy's voice was low and urgent, forcing me to listen to what he said. "Jeremy called me at home and told me to get over here." His voice had lowered again, barely above a whisper. "They were worried about you …"

_If you want to get his attention, whisper!_

"It's all right. It's really all right. Boss! Wilson always knew you cared. He just can't tell you anymore. Relax, Boss … let it go …"

After that it felt like someone had untied the knot that released a bag containing all my pent-up emotions.

It was quiet around that car for a long time. I was not shaking anymore, but the tears kept coming and coming. Billy held my shoulders fiercely. I was embarrassed and humiliated by my weakness. "Aw Billy … this is crap!"

Later, he picked me up bodily and carried me inside. Put me down on that old, smelly, crumpled brown couch that had been like a homing pigeon's nest for years.

He stayed until I recovered, and all the waterworks had run their course. He made a pot of strong coffee and we made short work of it. Neither of us said anything. There was nothing left to say.

When I spoke, trying somehow to say "thank you", he only grinned when I went back to addressing him as "W. T."

Now … I sit here alone once again in my austere little "handicap" apartment, medicated to the nines with the new, "safe" Vicodin. My fucking leg is quiet for now, and I have no problem moving around with the cane.

I'm drained, physically and emotionally. I have come to a conclusion that seems to work for me at the moment, but there's no guarantee it'll last long enough to get me through the night: _It's okay if you care, Billy. Just don't choke me with it! Shirley and Jeremy don't. Don't you!_

Anyhow, tomorrow it's back to work.

I should think about retiring for good, I guess.

The Gresham kid will be there. Has she tumbled yet to the fact of who I really am? … _was?_

If she has, should I be concerned about it? Will she want to know about Wilson?

If she hasn't … will I be waiting around like a guilty ten-year-old? Will I be waiting for the other shoe to drop?

_Fuck!_

#

112


	21. Chapter 21

"Whisper of the Wind"

Chapter 21

"Heavy Metals"

June 8, 2008

Early p.m.

Fleecy white clouds and a sky out of a fairytale had them both lighthearted and silly and completely free of anything so mundane as a guilty conscience. Jerry played around with the airplane a little, letting the giggling Suzanne know that he was an accomplished pilot, and not just an FAA lightweight with a Sunday joystick in his hand.

Below them, the snaky length of I-84 near Hartford stretched out like a ribbon on the landscape. Cars and trucks moved along like colorful species of insects, from ants to ladybugs to cock roaches. Crowns of trees that dotted the countryside thrust their leafy arms skyward, and rooftops appeared and disappeared beneath the plane's graceful wings. Then they were over I-91 at New Haven, still heading southwest and on course.

As they flew, Jerry turned off his radio-microphone, and they chattered loudly about silly and inconsequential things: movies they had seen, TV shows they enjoyed and actors they admired. They spoke of places they'd visited and people they had known. They prattled about their parents and childhood friends, siblings, old high schools, teachers, and the sports in which they had participated. Laughing together, they engaged in the type of light-hearted conversation practiced by every couple in the world seeking to get to know each other in a nutshell.

Wanda's name did not come up, or the fact of the child she carried. And Suzanne did not mention her husband. The only thing either of them wanted or needed right now was a day filled with carefree moments, free of all adult responsibility and life's problems left far behind.

After a time they could see the first faraway glimpse of the New York City skyline in the distance, and Jerry held up a hand for quiet in the cockpit. He needed to get ready to speak to the tower operator at Teterboro and prepare for a landing. He was about to reach up to turn on the mike.

That's when everything began to unravel. He was ready to begin to reduce altitude and prepare to circle for a landing. They both heard a distinct sharp "clunk" somewhere in the engine compartment, and the plane lurched momentarily, as though it had just tried to swallow something distasteful. Then it evened out for a moment and continued in level flight.

Jerry and Suzanne exchanged glances. "What was that?" Suzanne demanded. Her hand flew to her throat in alarm.

"Don't know," Jerry said. He moved the stick a little to the right and up a tad, and for a moment the little plane responded. Cautiously he worked both rudders, elevator and ailerons, shifting his feet back and forth on the pedals. The right rudder was hanging up for some reason. He fiddled with it, keeping his face mask-like to prevent Suzanne from panicking. She already had one hand at her neck and the other braced against the cockpit display panel. She was looking at him wide-eyed, half accusation, half alarm. She was a novice at this, and he had no clue what her reaction would be if they were in serious trouble.

Jerry reached up to flip the switch to activate his radio, notify the tower, broadcast a MAYDAY … But the line was dead. Something had snapped the connection. He swallowed convulsively, and a sharp pang of conscience clawed at his chest. There was going to be a price to pay. A price _they_ must pay for their indiscretion. He said nothing, biting his tongue to keep from saying Wanda's name out loud.

Jerry played the controls gingerly, trying to get a feel for the problem they might be facing. The left rudder was fine, but the right one seemed to be stuck. From the corner of his eye he saw that the left wing was coming up slightly, and he didn't want that to happen. Not yet. He tried to compensate for the right rudder, but nothing was happening. He held the control stick tightly in his right hand and eased it to the left with a slight pressure on his palm. The plane righted itself and the engine roared slightly.

Like a lioness that had been cuffed by her cub.

Something was definitely not right, but Jerry couldn't seem to get a handle on it. Puzzled and a little heavy again in his chest, he listened to the pitch of the engine. It was laboring.

The cotter pin that Joe Callucci had loosened on the apron at Logan International that morning, caught on the rudder stabilizer and parted company with its rigging. The metal arm it had been attached to shifted lazily to the left, where it jammed between the other two arms and very effectively froze the rudders, the elevator and the aileron.

In the cockpit, Jerry felt the change in the stick immediately. Pulling back and hard to the left, he felt something shift. Suddenly the stick was made of concrete. The pitch of the engine rose and so did his heartbeat. Sixty seconds ago they had been on a leisurely excursion, and now they were in a crippled, shuddering, out-of-control airplane that was ready to fly them nose-first into the unforgiving Earth.

Jerry glanced across at Suzanne and knew she was quickly losing her cool. Fortunately she was strapped tightly into her seat, or she would be jumping up and down, shifting from side to side. She would be scratching desperately for a means of escape, trying to climb into his lap.

He gave a final desperate heave on the stick and felt something below jerk loose. It was almost like holding onto a broom handle. He did not dare lift up on it like he would with a fucking broom … the thing might come off in his hand. The plane was off course now, careening out of control and spinning like a bullet toward Route 78.

Suzanne was screaming, both hands clawing at the sides of her head and pounding in panic at the bulkheads. Her eyes were like saucers, her mouth contorted in horror, spittle flying …

They were in a holographic instant of pre-destiny limbo. Jerry was panicking too, but frozen in place, his pilot's long experience telling him there was nothing he could do but sit and wait for the inevitable while the little plane keeled over. In a brilliant flash of clarity behind his eyes, the image of Wanda and her unborn child passed briefly through his consciousness. He would never see her again … or get to know his child.

The left wing of the Cessna Skyhawk came up with lazy calm and filled the entire left side of the windscreen. The right wing dipped dangerously. Their luggage careened across the back and hit the bulkhead with a crash. The engine howled and the propeller screamed as it sped up in front of Jerry's horrified eyes. The shaft was going to break.

Suzanne was silent now, her face a fright mask of grotesque proportions. All the color had drained out of her, leaving her complexion a pasty white. Her blonde hair stuck out from her head in staticky yellow strands. Veins stood out on her neck like tiny ropes holding her head in place.

The plane rolled over onto its back and fell Earthward. A wide concrete overpass on

I-78 leading into New York City grew larger before them, like a camera lens zooming in for a closeup shot.

At the far end of the on-ramp, a gasoline tanker, a huge shiny dark blue eighteen-wheeler, was just entering the overpass, innocently closing the gap between plane and truck. Its driver was unaware; he had the pedal to the metal, trying to regain some speed, coming off the gradual curve of the ramp. The nose of the truck zoomed into the closeup shot of the camera.

At the last possible second, Jerry Waltham lost it.

He screamed …

June 8, 2008

1:10 p.m.

Hualu Hualu Malu rode serenely along the highway, watching his speed, watching his RPMs and keeping half an eye on the tach. And looking out the windshield into the glory of a beautiful day. Ten miles or so ahead, he would transition across to I-78, heading for New York. His payload papers were hanging from a clip that dangled from the radio knob and rocked back and forth with the gentle sway of the truck.

He had left his mother's place an hour or so before, and swung onto the mainline about fifteen minutes later. Now he had nothing but time to get to the terminal and pull his rig into line for unloading tomorrow, according to his papers, about 2:00 p.m. Depending on his place in line though, he might be able to shuck the load much sooner than that and deadhead on home.

Once back in Altoona, and checklists confirmed, he had four days off. His head was filled with plans for those four days. If all went well, there was a pretty, dark haired Wahini waiting for him in the town of Tyrone. He had met her the week before at a backyard barbeque with a group of mutual friends.

They recognized each other for native Islanders, as an Irishman knows another Irishman, the moment they laid eyes on one another. The inevitable "island" conversation that flared instantly had quickly gained momentum until they agreed to meet and go out on a date a week hence.

Tuesday was the day! Lelani was the human resources manager for a manufacturing concern in Altoona, and had the option of calling in for vacation days whenever she pleased. She "pleased" to do so on Tuesday, June 10th.

As a result, Hualu Hualu was in the best of moods as he drove his truck along the interstate. He regretted a little that he had not told his mother of his latest conquest. But he had only known Lelani for a week … almost … and it would have been a shame for him to get her hopes up about a possible liaison, and then not have it work out.

This one, he believed, however, would work out. But he would not brag before he knew for sure.

In the meantime, there was a CD by Hawaiian artist Israel Kamakawiwo'ole … "Iz" … playing loudly, reverberating through the cab. The big man with the mellow voice was singing "Over the Rainbow" … and Hualu Hualu, with a huge smile on his face, nodded his head with the lazy rhythm and hummed along as the big Peterbilt hummed along the ribbon of highway.

It was 1:45 p.m. and the ramp to Interstate 78 was looming. Hualu Hualu hit the right turn signal and began to edge carefully into the far right-hand lane. There was other traffic ahead of him. A pickup, a van and some guy in a rollback were already heading onto the ramp, which circled gradually to the right and mounted to the level where 78 crossed over the highway that ran below it.

Hualu Hualu kept his rig well away from the rollback, but when that vehicle speeded up to gain momentum in order to merge with the flow of traffic, Hualu Hualu checked his

side view mirrors and accelerated also. The right side was clear and he felt the powerful vehicle beneath him gather reserve speed. He flipped the left turn signal to merge fully, and in the left side view, something huge and looming filled up the entire reflective surface of the mirror.

_What the …?_

With horrified certainty, he recognized the apparition as the whirling propeller and glaring windscreen of a small airplane, out of control and spiraling straight toward him.

Time holographed into freeze-frame for a split instant as Hualu Hualu's last thought was of his mother and the pretty Lelani.

Then the world went away in the biggest bang since the Big Bang …

… and so did, mercifully, Hualu Hualu.

June 8, 2008

1:35 p.m.

Gregory House was quoting from the newspaper he held folded in his lap as the old Dodge Dynasty sped down the highway, headed home.

"'Dr. Ralph Armstad of Montpelier, Vermont, this morning hinted that New Jersey oncologist, James Wilson, may have information in the death of Dr. Daniel Shepherd at a hotel near here yesterday. According to Armstad, Wilson knew of the plot to steal Shepherd's research papers when the two butted heads at a medical convention at the Best Western Hotel, downtown.'"

Wilson and House stared at each other in shocked disbelief from opposite sides of the wide front seat. "What the hell are they talking about?" House snarled. "The son of a bitch is trying to take the focus off himself by putting it on you! I don't believe this!"

He continued to read the article out loud. "'Police plan to detain Wilson at the hotel for further questioning …'"

Wilson's eyes grew large and round. "That's what those two black and whites were doing at the hotel when we pulled out awhile ago."

House chuffed angrily and snorted through his nose in disdain. "Well, they were a little too fucking late. Christ! Of all the idiotic crap! All they had to do was question the other people who were right there and heard what went on. What became of that? Why the hell would they believe Armstad? It'll take you all of five minutes to set 'em straight." House folded the newspaper and tossed it over into the middle of the back seat. In the side view mirror he saw the two black and whites behind them, paralleling their position and speed. He said nothing.

In his right jacket pocket, Gregg thumbed a tiny switch on a device that looked much like an old Zippo cigarette lighter. He spoke in a normal voice: "Disregard! Repeat … abort … disregard. This is New York One. Return to base!" He thumbed the switch again. The device vibrated in his fingers for a moment, then went silent and still. House removed his hand from his pocket and placed it in his lap.

Wilson was looking at him strangely. "Yeah … but isn't it great that what _he_ says is spread all over the headlines? Not a single word about what the others of us told them. Sensationalism! Reporters getting even because the police locked them out! What a way to get your name in the paper! Not exactly how I'd planned it …" Wilson had meant the statement as a joke, but it didn't come out that way. He was upset. He got very quiet. Oppressively so.

House finally looked at his friend with consternation, eyes dark with regret. This was not good. In a sudden impulse he reached across and tapped his friend's arm once in support, and then withdrew. Wilson had gone silent, and that bothered House. A lot. "When was the last time you were in Vermont?"

Wilson looked across with sudden understanding, and smiled slightly, then returned his attention to the road. There was a maroon minivan in the lane to their right, a couple of look-alike sedans behind that, and two black and white police cruisers further back. "When I was about thirteen," he said. "Why?"

"Just wondered," House said. "That's where Armstad and Shepherd are from. Guess you can't steal their research if you aint there and don't know where the lab is, huh?" He was trying very hard to change the subject and raise Wilson's spirits.

James understood, and House's continued benevolence puzzled him. "Guess not," he agreed. He plied his attention between the highway ahead and the rearview mirror. The van and the other cars maintained their positions and held to the posted speed. The police cars were maintaining speed also, and there was no indication that they were activating lights or sirens. Yet.

"How's your hand?" House persisted. "Looks swollen. Is it sore? When we get back, you're gonna go to the Emergency Room and pay a visit to Goody Two-Shoes. Let her pity you a little and fix that up. You're damaged. She might want to have an affair with you. I still think you need stitches …"

Wilson sighed, a little bothered by all this snarky concern. "Why are you worried about it? It's okay. It's a minor cut … and I'll live. By the way … where would you like to go for your birthday? You've been avoiding that subject for days. Chicken of turning forty-nine, you poor limping twerp?"

House frowned. He hated having a snarky conversation turned around on him. "Hey! This is about you … not about me!"

Wilson grinned. "That's a switch. I told you we were going out somewhere for your birthday. I wasn't kidding. I even got you a birthday present … something that'll remind you of yourself."

House repressed a grin, laying it on a little thick, now that Wilson seemed to be shucking off his mantle of anger and disappointment. "What'd you get me?"

"If you want to find out, you'll just have to go along to your birthday dinner with me …

no dinner, no present …"

House grunted. "Humph!"

Wilson was paying more attention to the rearview mirrors now. The maroon van had a family in it. Man, woman, two kids. As it slid back and forth, maintaining a position off their right fender, he could see that there was a DVD playing in the back seat. Two pairs of youthful eyes were glued to it. Wilson smiled to himself, wondering for a moment, what might have happened if he had had children of his own.

He saw that one of the sedans had changed lanes and now traveled behind them. Ahead, he became aware of another car that had dropped back in traffic, and was now only a few car lengths ahead of them. The police cars had dropped back a little.

In the meantime, Gregg ceased his chatter. He reclined his seat and pushed back in it, stretched out as far as his long legs could reach. Wilson figured his bum leg was not happy with the travel arrangements.

That wasn't it at all. House had full view of the cops from his position, and saw that the cars seemed ready to slow down and peel off, out of traffic.

House turned his head back to the left and squinted at Wilson, and at his wounded hand resting lightly, palm-up in his lap. "I can hear your little wheels turning, Wilson," he said softly. "I can read your mind … and as long as we're going to go to some restaurant for my damned birthday, I might as well warn you … there's something I should tell you. Something I should have told you a long time ago …

"Now turn around and keep your eyes on the road. I'm tired." He turned his head back toward the center, and as he did so, his eyes grew wide and huge and blue.

"Wilson! Look! Up there!"

Wilson gazed upward through the car's windshield and saw the airplane. It was in trouble. It loomed high in front of them at an undetermined distance, careening downward, right wing dipped too low to be under control.

An underpass that ran beneath I-78 was coming up fast. As they neared, they could hear the thundering roar of a laboring eighteen-wheeler, a gasoline tanker running through its gears, struggling to gain speed on the uphill ramp directly overhead.

Added to that, another roar, the laboring slap of the plane's damaged engine as the little aircraft fell out of the sky, going down like a flying brick, headed straight for the tanker loaded with gasoline, and an overpass full of Sunday traffic.

James and Gregg both bolted upright. James' foot went down hard on the brake as they entered the underpass. The plane grew larger and larger, bearing down almost on top of them. Then it disappeared beyond the concrete abutment, and a thunderous explosion rocked the highway for a mile in all directions as the tanker went up like Vesuvius.

The van's driver jammed his brakes also, as the car in front of the Dynasty accelerated like a jet plane and fishtailed through a red blossom of fire. The car behind the Dynasty rammed its rear end with a crash, and the maroon van slid around into a 180-degree skid that was halted when it was smashed by another car that careened into the side of it. It bounced and rammed the passenger side of the Dynasty with a violence that threw Gregory House forward against his seat belt like a rag doll, and rammed him hard against the shoulder of James Wilson.

Wilson's mouth opened in a silent scream when the burning, still whirling, propeller of the little airplane impacted his driver's side window, which imploded. James Wilson had no time to react. His temple took the hit and it forced his head to the right, against the ricocheting shoulder of Gregory House. A small sedan came out of nowhere on the other side of the van and T-boned the Dynasty. Pieces of metal trim clanked around on the roadbed. Broken radiators hissed their indignity. Horns wailed.

Then all was still except for the ominous echo of death, the stuck car horns, and the "pop-pop-pop" of smaller explosions above them.

The destroyed airplane prop had dropped to the concrete and lay burning. House's car was reduced to the shape of a smashed cardboard box, and the men inside did not move. The smoking remains came to rest against the concrete pillar of the underpass with another car halfway into its trunk. The maroon van and the little green sedan both slid backward a few feet and came to rest behind the passenger door.

Above the underpass structure, a conflagration raged; a dozen cars incinerated, halting traffic in all directions for miles around. Some of their occupants were reduced to blackened shells. The old Peterbilt lay in smoking metal ruin, its cab peeled back like a smashed tin can. No sign of a driver. He had vaporized, as had the occupants of the small aircraft. All Earthly remains would be identifiable only through examination of dental records. Maybe not even then.

The police were out of their cars and running forward, lapel mikes against their lips, requesting ambulances and cruisers from every nearby facility that could spare them. They hurried toward the tangle of wrecked vehicles beneath the underpass.

Miraculously, people were beginning to move about, protected from the worst of it by the concrete and steel overhead.

Then they got to the old Dodge Dynasty.

There was blood everywhere. The front seat was red with it, and the two occupants were not moving. Both cops drew closer, yanking grimly at the twisted metal, which by some divine intervention, yielded beneath their adrenalin-powered super strength.

Fingers on carotid pulses told them the men inside were still alive.

Just barely …

#

121


	22. Chapter 22

"Whisper of the Wind"

Chapter 22

"Doing the Math"

January 2025

Gresham:

If I thought I was going to get any respite from the puzzle that began at home over the holidays when I opened that book on the dining room table, I was certainly mistaken. Even after the first of the new year, on the way back to Ann Arbor and my second semester, everything about that damned old book by the former Dr. Cuddy had me

staring out the window and into the depths of the clouds.

Biting my nails.

After the quiet discussion I'd overheard in my parents' kitchen Christmas night, a parade of questions marched through my mind like high school drum majors. Had my parents known Billy Travis before? Or not? His photograph hadn't been included in the book, and all they had to go on was the candid Zai-Zo photo I'd snapped in the cafeteria at school. If they recognized him from those small images, they hadn't said so, but it had been hard to miss the silent exchange between them when we sat down for breakfast the next morning. They referred to him … or someone very much like him … as "Bill", and that in itself, gave me no clue at all.

I never told them I'd overheard their conversation from my hidey-hole in the dark kitchen the night before. After that I hung back even further, head full of questions, but unsettled about what questions to ask, if any. I didn't know what was appropriate because of all the warnings I'd been given about not questioning Leather. My head told me he was hiding something from the world, and my parents knew what it was. My befuddled brain fumbled furiously with what I had to go on, which was less than nothing.

I thought about it constantly the rest of the time I spent at home. I compared notes in my head about what I knew and what I didn't … and not much of anything made any sense.

Dr. House had been seriously disabled, and even as a ten-year-old kid, I'd known something was wrong with his leg. I knew he suffered constant pain throughout a life, which had ended in tragedy only another year or so after my family lost touch. But as I was growing up, I forgot that he had been so lame.

Photographs in the Cuddy memoir depicted him with a cane in his right hand … the hurt side … and I remembered him walking that way. It made his gait a little clumsy with that constant sway from right to left, and his free arm waving all over the place as an aid to balance. He reminded me at the time of a paper airplane … looping and dipping.

I had no idea what had happened that crippled him, but it must have been bad. I was totally curious as a kid, but it faded away. The cane that was photographed with him in the book was one of those Derby wooden ones, and it had a fancy banded handle.

Leather … my boss … also walks with his cane in his right hand … and it's his right leg also that's hurt … although I don't actually know what's wrong with it. And his arm also sways in rhythm with the problem of balance. Leather's balance issues seem worse than House's were. Of course, Leather's a lot older. His silly-ass cane looks nothing like Dr. House's elegant one.

Billy Travis has made it his business to tell me not to ask about personal stuff, and up to now I haven't. Billy's admonition to me _not_ to go to him in the auditorium that day just before Christmas vacation, had just about been the last straw …

I'd wanted to tell Leather how much his playing of "Silent Night" had moved me. But Billy said he was playing for a "memory" … for something that didn't exist anymore. What the hell did _that_ mean?

Another thing that puzzled me was mom and dad referring to Dr. House and Dr. Wilson by their first names: "Gregg" and "Jimmy". Why? Was it because Mom saw the two of them so often that they all just naturally fell into a first-name basis as time passed? That didn't seem likely, since it would have seemed profoundly unprofessional, especially on the two doctors' parts, and Dr. House didn't seem like the type.

When we make our rounds at the hospital here in Michigan, it is constantly stressed that as doctors we must insist on strict adherence to professionalism with patients at all times. No first names, no nicknames, no casual joking around … at least not in the exam rooms or the professional theatres. In the corridors it's another matter … but what patient ever gets a chance to walk down a corridor cracking jokes with his doctor?

Does Billy Travis remember my parents? I wonder about that. If he does, he's never mentioned it. If he remembers them at all, then he would certainly remember me too … if I remind him I was that ten-year-old. So, I guess not. At the age of ten, I was not someone who took kindly to being ignored. Only Dr. House had been able to put me in my place … no-nonsense and half pissed off and sooo sexy looking! Even a ten-year-old understands sex appeal. I had loved him for it.

As I now loved Leather. Maybe not in a sexy way … but certainly in a: "Smoky-eyes-oh-my-God- isn't-he-beautiful?" way. That's the same thing, isn't it?

And there was still that other problem. What would happen if I ever summoned up enough nerve to confess to Leather how much he has come to mean to me? Would I shock him to his core? As though anything on the planet could ever shock the man about anything …

What would he say? Would he take it the wrong way? Would he be angry? Yell at me? Fire my ass?

Yes, yes, yes … and yes. Probably. But there had been times when I'd seen him staring at me when he thought I wasn't looking. The stares were sometimes very flattering. A woman doesn't ignore that stuff. She only pretends to ignore it.

Besides, I like it. And I like _him!_

He's a complicated man. Secretive and aloof. Sometimes he seems frightened in the same sense that a military leader is frightened: protective of his privacy and on guard against invasion and against information that might fall into enemy hands.

Sometimes he seems brittle, like a crystal vase that would shatter into a thousand pieces if dropped. Sometimes he is wary and maintains the vigilance of a wild bird. I sense in him the heightened instincts of a wild thing … fending off usurpers lurking near fresh-killed prey.

He is in pain. Day in, day out. Physical, mental and spiritual. Suspicious of strangers. Precise, nervous, controlled.

Always controlled.

Mom said that Leather and Gregory House could pass for father and son, and I remember thinking the same thing a few weeks before she reminded me of that. The night I stood eavesdropping beside the refrigerator, she'd mentioned a "cleft" … something. And then the compressor came on and drowned out the rest.

"Cleft chin?" I knew through my medical studies that if a father and son do not share the cleft-chin characteristic … or lack thereof … they are _not_ biological father and son. It's in the genes. Dr. House had a slight cleft chin. Not very noticeable beneath the scruff, but it was there! The photographs in the book confirmed it. With Leather, you can't tell. His beard is too heavy, but it made me think about it. If Leather was actually Dr. House's father, it was no wonder he didn't want to be reminded about it … or about the tragedy that had claimed Gregory House's life so many years before his time.

Was this the closely guarded secret? Somehow it didn't fit.

Then "Leather" wasn't Leather's real name. Of course it wasn't! It was maybe … "Something" House. But Leather couldn't possibly be that old! Could he? In order for him to be Dr. House's father, he would have to be in his eighties. Billy told me he was in his late sixties. But then that meant …

_Oh … my God! The numbers match!_

I had to confront Billy Travis and make him tell me the truth.

_Is_ Dr House dead? Or isn't he? Billy held information I was becoming desperate to possess. Something wasn't right, and I was more and more determined to find out what it was.

Are Leather and Gregory House the same person?

Damn this whole confusing business! How had I become so entangled in this mess in the first place?

Luck, I guess …

January 2, 2025

Leather:

I stood in the shower, hunched over, both hands hanging onto the grab bars for dear life, trying to coax my leg to take more of my weight. Thank the Powers That Be for hot water that never runs out. I'd been in here almost fifteen minutes, and it didn't seem likely that I'd be getting out soon.

Every muscle screamed. Even my bones felt like stiffened rubber. Hot water streamed in cascades off my head, my face, and dropped off my chin. Ran down my scarecrow's chest and down my scarred, concave belly and past what remained of my manhood. Then down the length of two mismatched legs, onto the shower floor and down the drain. I was diminished as a man, a wasted biological specimen, and a pitiful example of adult maleness. The body was a mass of scars and an advertisement for the ravages of old age.

I probably should have gone over to the university this morning, but I couldn't summon enough strength to haul my creaky bones out of bed to get moving. W. T. called about 8:30 a.m. wondering where the hell I was, and wanting to know if everything was all right. Wanted to know if he should come get me and drive me over there. Get a wheelchair and bring it along … blah blah blah …

Smartass … I have my own if I need it … folded up and stashed away in the closet …

_He reminds me of Wilson!_

I told him I was fine … just feeling sorry for myself, and pissed off at the spectacle I'd made in the car yesterday.

He assured me that I had been no bother, and he was there whenever I needed him. I knew that already. I told him I was fine, and I would see him tomorrow. He scoffed at the "I'm fine" part, and then rang off. He knew when not to bug me.

More than I could say for Wilson …

Still standing under the hot water and starting to feel a lethargic numbness from the high temperature, I could feel myself becoming a little lightheaded. I needed to get out of the shower, dry down and get to my bedroom. Slide under the covers and just sleep. I was experiencing something like depression, I think. Not giving a shit for anything.

My head kept returning to Whitey and Mountain View. The warmth of tears on my lips. The illogical sense of joy and hope that jarred my senses into believing a miracle had occurred and he had come back to me.

Hell … I know that real life doesn't work that way.

Even after all these years I still lament his absence. I did not appreciate him when I had him.

Many of us don't appreciate those we love until they are not there anymore. It's a fact of life and regrettable. I can only hope that on the day I go to my final reward … or my final retribution … he will be there on that plateau … waiting for me. I also hope the two of us don't go in opposite directions. That would suck …

But it's iffy. Even after all those years of taking foolish chances and playing games with life, I never could determine what is on "the other side". Dangerous half-measures had availed me nothing … and I had once counted my talents as formidable. I finally learned that Providence guards its secrets well.

Wilson and his unrelenting shenanigans gave me hope, and the hope has been draining out of me ever since he left. He offered me courage and I depended on his generosity more than he knew. More than _I_ knew! If there is a Plateau after the cessation of life as we know it … like he has said there is … then he waits for me just inside the entrance to whatever we're headed for in eternity.

He was like the whisper of the wind. I didn't need to see him to know he was there.

He still is …

Jesus! House, you addlepated old fool! You can't go on like this! Get control of yourself … or you're going to pass out in the goddamn shower and lay here like a boiled lobster …

I took a chance letting go of one of the grab bars, and reached to turn off the shower.

Limp and drained, I was barely standing. Water dripped off me like drops off a roof after a summer storm. Splash and dash. Wet dog. Phew!

After a fashion, I reoriented myself to the space I occupied in the lateral-time continuum, and looked around me. It was still my bathroom. My place. My pity party. My usual choice to feel sorry for myself. The absence of the steamy water had cooled things down, and I was suddenly shivering.

_Move it or lose it, old man!_

I stepped out of the tub gingerly, and onto the bathmat. I grabbed the nearest towel and rubbed my body down as vigorously as possible … a pitiful attempt. The damned towel wrapped itself almost twice around what passed for my waist.

Pathetic!

I hobbled to bed without the use of the cane … clutching wetly at the walls to maintain what little balance was left. My leg was heavy and painful. I swallowed two of the new-age Vicodin and wished for the old, opiate-filled ones of long ago. These took twice as long to work.

I dropped the towel to the floor and crawled between the sheets.

The world went away.

January 2, 2025

Billy Travis:

She's going to know. I know she's going to know!

I did as the boss asked, and held her off as long as possible. Now she has a crush on him, is angry with me for manipulating her, and I have this premonition that when she gets back tomorrow, the shit is gonna hit the fan.

If she read Cuddy's book, she's probably onto the rest of the story, or close to it. Her parents will recognize Gregg and they'll tell her who he is … after they get over the initial shock of finding out the truth.

I'm glad he took the day off today. After all that happened yesterday, it'll be good if he just rests and tries to recuperate so he can face the music again tomorrow. His past is gonna come back and kick him in the ass, I'm afraid. He's a tough cookie, and I've known him a long time. But his age and his lousy physical condition are against him.

And his heart is sore. He has already lost more than any human being should lose in a dozen lifetimes. The regrets Gregg House still feels over the loss of Wilson are killing him as sure as his failing internal organs and the damned leg that nothing more can be done about. He wouldn't let them amputate, and soon he won't be able to walk at all.

I guess I'll go over there this evening … make sure he has something to eat and check to see if he's reasonably comfortable. Maybe I can think of something to say that will let him know I'll be there for him when the shit hits the fan with Gresham.

I can see his face in my head … like the little teapot that got so hot it blew its lid … smoke coming out of his ears. There will be carryings on that will echo off the walls.

Me … just sitting there taking it all in. Like a blotter.

Letting him vent.

I make a lousy substitute for Jimmy … but I've got to try …

#

128


	23. Chapter 23

"Whisper of the Wind"

Chapter 23

"Cleanup on Aisle Nine"

June 8, 2008:

Screams and shouts and urgent directives still echoed through the chaos beneath the overpass of I-78. The sounds of broken glass and squealing rubber and rending metal, however, had finally abated.

People stunned by what had just happened milled about amid the tangled wreckage and extricated themselves and their families from their ruined vehicles. Checking themselves and each other, strangers united in a common cause for injuries large or small, they were finding that by some miracle there were few serious cases requiring more than a bandage or two and a few stitches.

Already the driver of the maroon van, a young Asian man in his thirties, herded his family to safety against the underpass's far abutment and covered their shoulders with a blanket. He hugged them and let them know he would be nearby, but he must help those who were injured. He then returned to the twisted older-model car and stood peering through the shattered passenger-side window. Behind him, heavy footsteps of two uniformed policemen were hurrying through the twisted metal, checking each car in turn and working their way to the center of the chain-reaction secondary disaster.

Mike Burdette and Maury Winbaum had been riding in one of the black and whites a few car lengths behind the small cluster of cars that took the brunt of the explosion from the overpass. The battered Dodge just ahead was the same one they had been ordered to detain. Until the mysterious "abort" had come through on the comm. system …

Their fellow officers in the second black and white, Rick DeSantis and Ruth Marshak, had peeled off onto the median shortly after the plane hit the tanker. By now they were directing traffic and doing what they could for any survivors of the conflagration above.

Both units had been dispatched earlier to pull over the grey Dodge, return its occupants to the city for police questioning, and have the car towed in. And then they received that strange message …

No arrest would ever happen now. Things had got a little skewed.

Both Mike and Maury had their shoulder mikes to their lips, requesting all available backup to the junction of I-78 and I-95. When they saw the involvement of the gasoline tanker, both units requested additional assistance. In a few short minutes twenty cruisers, buses, fire trunks and ambulances were responding and on their way. Three Army medicopters took off from Kennedy within three minutes of the call, loaded with supplies and a first-alert team to go with them.

Plus a HazMat Unit with a crew of five.

Mike Burdette was first cop upon the scene of the crumpled car, along with a struggling, compact Asian guy who was already putting considerable muscle into getting the driver's side door open. A man was bent over the wheel in there, bleeding profusely from a head wound. It was Mike's job to keep civilians back and away from danger, but this was one of the many compromises that made that rule necessary.

Maury rushed up to the passenger side where another man was unconscious and bleeding from numerous injuries. Mike caught his partner's eye across the metal roof. All three men immediately laid into the difficult task of freeing both passengers from the damaged front seat and giving them first aid until the ambulances arrived.

Gregory House had seen death coming, reminded for a single instant of 9/11. The plane was bearing down on them from out of the sky, growing larger and larger in his line of vision. He wondered what those innocents inside the offices of New York's North Tower must have thought in the instant when they saw that behemoth heading straight at them.

Wilson, just as innocent, had no concept, no idea he was about to die. From his position in the driver's seat, he would have had to scrunch low and peer skyward between the crossbars of the steering wheel in order to grasp the gravity of their situation. House had been vaguely aware that there was a small plane in trouble, but from his idle observation, it was still "up there", and of no immediate danger. Wilson was still teasing his friend about the birthday celebration and the little gift that nestled in a tiny box tucked away in the pocket of his sports jacket.

Gregg said nothing when the plane zeroed in. Why alarm Wilson? It was already too late. They were hemmed in by traffic and trapped by fate.

"So long, Wilson … I love you too …"

When the plane's broken propeller impacted the window on Wilson's side of the car and ripped away his powers of cognitive thinking forever, he had only a smug, satisfied grin stamped on his face. That beatific expression would haunt Gregory House, and the changed man he would become, for the rest of his life.

Whisper of the wind …howl of the hurricane … then nothing …

Mike Burdette and the Japanese guy and other stragglers who gathered to help, put their shoulders into the broken driver's door and bent it backward until the compromised hinge came loose from the old car's body and a groan of rusting metal folded it against the accordianed front fender.

James Wilson had a dent in the side of his head as deep as the width of an infant's fist. The bone was splintered, forced inward, into his brain. His rescuers knew immediately that he was slowly dying. He'd never known what hit him. Blood and grey matter flowed from the wound in his skull and soaked the shoulder of his sports jacket and ran down over his body to the carpeted floor of the car. There was not another mark on him. His limbs were all intact, except for a bloodied bandage already taped between the two middle fingers of his left hand. Incredibly, a touch to his carotid pressure point pronounced him still alive. For now.

Sam Itaki took off his sport shirt and twirled it into a pressure bandage. They wrapped it around Wilson's skull to staunch the flow and then straightened him in his seat; aware there was nothing further they could do for him. Grimly, Burdette realized there would be no police interrogation. Not ever. There would be no murder investigation. Only the headlines would remain to haunt whatever happened later …

Across from them, Maury Winbaum had his hands full with the lanky guy in the passenger seat. House's head also was bloody, but the wound above his right eye was superficial. It was the rest of his right side that was cause for alarm. It had taken the entire brunt of the collision.

The man's shirt was torn and slick, shoulder imbedded with glass from the shattered window, forced through the skin by the impact of the van slamming into the door. Safety glass, which would normally have fallen away harmlessly, had been buried in the muscle as though it had been stamped there by an engraving machine. His elbow was laid open by trim from the door. The humerus, radius and ulna were all fractured, judging from the angle of his arm, and the back of his right hand was bleeding and pooling on his pantleg.

Further down, both legs were twisted beneath the dashboard, probably both broken. They couldn't tell yet. Mike and Charlie … and a group of tattered volunteers … turned and hurried around to assist Maury in forcing the bent door open and away so they could better determine the extent of the tall man's injuries.

Then they found the cane wedged beside the seat. Undamaged.

Gregory House's legs were pinned just enough so that the cop and the civilians were afraid to try to move him for fear of injuring him further. One of his legs was evidently already injured and compromised … but which one? His abdomen was spongy and darkly discolored from his hip inward, indicating undetermined internal injuries. Until more EMTs and the medical units arrived and they could get him out of there, there was nothing further they could do except stabilize him where he sat, and hope to hell he didn't begin to regain consciousness.

Army helicopters got there first. Powerful Sikorskys, alighting like tornadoes in the median a short distance away. Their huge bay doors were pushed aside, and a grim cadre of uniformed medical personnel filed out and ran … half toward the upper deck of the highway … the other half toward the pile of vehicles crunched together below. With them came boxes and suitcases and sensing equipment and defibrillators and gurneys, all being carried or propelled toward the wreckage … and toward the place where James Wilson and Gregory House lay wounded and at the edge of death in the middle of thousands of pounds of tangled metal.

Wilson was extracted first. His body slid out of the car easily and they placed him gently on the first gurney. He carried no I. D., only a tiny gift box in the pocket of his jacket. They removed the shirt from his wound and they looked. Already heads were shaking in the negative, but somehow he still lived.

They stabilized his head, intubated him, began IVs, strapped his body down securely and began the long, careful backtrack onto the crowded highway, past buses and vans and ambulances, arriving in colorful waves. He was loaded into the first Sikorsky, which then powered up and lifted quickly into the sky, back in the direction from which it had come, away from the thick clouds of smoke still curling into the air. Members of the medical team were certain he would not live long enough to make it to the hospital.

But he fooled them …

Gregory House was another matter. They had checked his identification and already knew who … and what … he was. They knew he was a doctor of renown, and they discovered that he had already come into this with a serious disability.

More and more crews arrived on the scene, and the strongest of the men lent their backs to lifting the sprung dashboard off House's legs. It was offputting. Even a few seasoned veterans turned briefly away. Both his legs were indeed broken. The right femur gleamed pearly white above the knee. The huge surgical scar between his knee and hip had been torn away from the bone. Broken and splintered plastic was imbedded in the surrounding flesh, already pinched and lacerated from the impact of the inside door handle. They had to administer morphine and anesthetics before they could even begin to stabilize the broken bones and stem the flow of blood. They made certain he did not regain consciousness. His pain would have been far beyond endurable.

When they finally got him onto the gurney and straightened his body, his blood pressure took a nosedive, and he almost died right there. He was bleeding internally, and what little they could do for him in the field had already been done. He needed far more than they were capable of accomplishing beneath a smelly underpass already drowning in toxic fumes.

They loaded him into another Sikorsky and slammed the bay door. The big helicopter took off for the nearest trauma center without waiting for the rest of its medical crew. It was necessary.

Above them, the line of ambulances and EMT buses looked like a Fourth of July flotilla that had gone dead in the water. Red, white and blue lights were visible for miles beneath a cover of diminishing smoke. Crews worked feverishly to save the lives they could, and respectfully laid aside what was left.

Twelve people died that day. Twenty-three badly hurt.

EMTs and rescue crews suffered cuts and abrasions and burns from taking necessary chances while treating the injured.

In a field a half-mile away, a farmer sat on his tractor, halted mid-furrow. In his hand a tiny piece of odd technology pointed skyward, recording for posterity the crippled airplane on its final wallowing approach, and everything that unfolded thereafter during the next two hours. The farmer's friend had called his new invention a "Zai-Zo". He told the farmer to carry it around with him and record anything that looked interesting. The thing resembled an old cigarette lighter, and his company was still working on it. So far it looked promising. He had not mentioned the name of the company …

All this agony and death … because an angry brother-in-law from 200 miles away had tampered around under the cowl of a Cessna Skyhawk. Joe Callucci, from that day forward, never spoke of his murderous misdeed. One day, two weeks later, Joe went quietly mad. He put the business end of a hand gun in his mouth and …

Some time after the accident it was reported that the two injured doctors from Princeton, New Jersey, had brought the body count to fourteen.

Any intended police investigation was quietly dropped. Armstad never owned up to his lie, and within a month, slipped quietly into lifelong obscurity. There was talk of suing the tabloid that had run the story about the young oncologist. Nothing ever came of it.

#

133


	24. Chapter 24

"Whisper of the Wind"

Chapter 24

"The Unbearable Pain of Knowing"

January 2025

Gresham:

I got back on campus a little after 3:00 Wednesday afternoon. Slogging angrily through icy slush and dirty, wet snow, I went directly to my quarters. I stashed everything where it belonged, including the antique gold-plated wristwatch with second hand and timer. Mom and dad must have spent a fortune on it, and I almost hated to wear it. I placed it at the bottom of my dresser drawer. I was slightly pissed at circumstances, along with everything else.

My raging emotions had calmed down a little on the trip back, but my confusion hadn't

lessened, nor had the hurt and anger completely subsided. I felt tricked and lied to all along the line by everyone around me who had put me off with averted eyes and embarrassed silence. I felt used and misled by everyone I was supposed to trust.

Now I'm at a crossroads. It's high damned time to stop taking mumbled monosyllables

and pregnant pauses and blank looks for answers.

On my dressing table stood the old photograph that had been my life's inspiration for becoming a doctor, and I was beginning to feel betrayed by that also. Dr. House, I suspected, had transformed himself, practically overnight, into someone other than the man he used to be. I stared at his handsome self in the photograph before me as my mind superimposed the image of Leather over that of House.

I was becoming ever more certain that my suspicions were valid: the brow ridge, the hairline, the Patrician nose with a similar scar, the shape of the huge cerulean eyes. _Smoky eyes!_ The almost exact use of the cane. Something cataclysmic had happened in this man's life to transform him like that … and I needed to know what it was. It was as though someone had traced over the original photo and replaced it with a lifelike cartoon character. I wasn't sure I liked the transition.

And where in the _hell_ was Dr. Wilson? Were there lies about him floating around too? Was he actually alive somewhere, also hiding out? Perpetuating the lie?

Funny, isn't it, that the more bullshit you get handed, the easier it is to turn it into fertilizer!

I would probably still be stumbling around in the dark, so to speak, if the people I asked about Leather had leveled with me just a little. But every time the door got slammed in my face, it drove my curiosity forward into overdrive. Denials, and mysterious lapses into silence, and constant warnings about asking too many questions, only made me more suspicious and more determined to find out what the hell all the secrecy was about.

Now it was time to fish or cut bait. First, I was going to track down Billy Travis, even if it took all day.

Tomorrow it would be Leather's turn.

I didn't have to go very far to find Billy. It seemed that he had the day off, according to the campus nursing supervisors schedule. When I entered the cafeteria, he was sitting at one of the tables having lunch with Joe and Inky and Hooter, who were probably on lunch break. I walked up to them boldly and said "Hi" to his three friends. They nodded, sensing something off. I then pinned Billy Travis in place with a sullen stare and announced that I wished to speak to him. Alone.

The others bowed out and hurried away. I shoved their utensils aside and sat down. "We need to talk!"

His head came up, but he wasn't quite fast enough to squelch the glint of alarm in his eyes. "About what?"

"About Leather. And Gregory House. And James Wilson."

He stood quickly. "Why?"

"I think you know why."

"Is it about that book I saw you with before Christmas? You're daydreaming, Gresham … you're in over your head."

"I don't think so! I have questions you need to answer … and they go way back beyond the first appearance of the damn book. It's just the tip of the iceberg. So let's find a place to have a private conversation … that is, if you don't want a whole cafeteria full of people to hear what I have to say …"

Billy put his napkin, cup and silverware on his plate and picked it up. "Come with me, Gresham. My office is in the Annex, on the second floor." He bussed his dishes, led the way out the middle door of the caff and began the trek to the dark brick building across the commons. Before that moment, I didn't even know that he _had_ an office.

The room was small, but comfortable. There was a desk and chair, an old wooden rocking chair, a PING console, a bookcase and two straight-back chairs completing the furnishings. The floor was old oak, burnished to a soft sheen.

He sat down at the desk and looked at me expectantly. I took the rocking chair and turned it to face him. I didn't hem-haw around. "Tell me about Leather," I said. "Everything." I took a deep breath and expelled it nervously. I was taking the biggest gamble of my life. What if I was wrong? "Begin back during the time you worked with him … 'down east' …and he was still known as Gregory House."

Billy glared, not unkindly, but the brightness of his eyes dimmed with regret, right there in front of me. Hesitating deliberately, he was looking for chinks in my armor, probably wondering if this was a gigantic bluff on my part. Did I actually know something I had no business knowing? Obviously, he could not quite tell. I held my ground, leaning forward in the chair.

_Fish or cut bait, Billy!_

He sighed. "What do you want to know? You're aware, of course, that anything I tell you has the potential to harm Leather if it gets out into the mainstream. He has spent the last … nearly seventeen years … keeping quiet. He does it out of admiration and respect and something else … very personal."

"I assumed that," I said. "I don't want to hurt him, Billy. I want to understand him." I swallowed hard, and continued with my heart in my throat. "I love him. I tried really hard not to, but I can't help myself. I have no idea what it is that draws me to a man who is almost three times my age. It's not pity. He's a jerk! But there's something in his soul that speaks to something in my soul … and I need … to know … what it is …"

I hung my head and fought like hell to stem the tears I could feel rushing in a bitter cascade behind my eyes. It was hard, but I was made of sterner stuff than some pathetic little schoolgirl who resorted to tears every time her feelings got hurt …

At last I was able to look up again, dry eyed and determined. I thought I saw a small waver of new respect take the place of regret in Billy Travis' expression. I continued softly, measuring each word, trying to earn that which I thought I'd seen.

"I will not betray your confidence, Billy … nor Leather's. I'm caught up in the middle of something staggering here … something unique. Unparalleled. But no one seems willing to let me explore it, and it scares me a little … like there's some sense of conspiracy. Please, Billy … trust me! Something horrible happened to Leather … something so horrifying that it caused him to change his whole life. I need to know so I can help. He's lonely, and scared … and he hurts so bad …"

"That's a tall order," he said. "I've never spoken to a single soul about this. Do you understand?"

I nodded, trying to believe that he would indeed allow me into his confidence. "Yes. Of course I understand. I'm honored that you would tell me. You just haven't known me long enough to be certain I wouldn't run off at the mouth. But I haven't, Billy! And I won't. Every time you warned me to back away, I backed away. I never asked Leather about anything that you asked me not to. I never pitied him … never patronized him or catered to his disability. I played fair, and now I'd like you to do the same."

I pushed out of the chair anxiously and stood facing him while he kept his desk as a final barrier between him and me. I was aware that my hands were waving in front of me like semaphore flags, but I kept going, unable to withdraw the flood of questions now.

"I was always careful not to make him sorry he hired me for this job. I did everything you told me to do … and everything _he_ told me to do … I even did extra research on my own and combed the archives for information on the library displays … and …"

He was suddenly smiling, admitting defeat and acknowledging that I was drowning him with words. "I know." Billy sounded very much like he had realized this all along. "Leather told me. That's not what this is about."

Then I saw he was chuckling at the way I'd run on without even taking a deep breath. I gasped for air and glared at him. Had I made any headway? Evidently so. His head was lowered, lips pursed, eyes closed.

Finally he sighed. "You win." And his head came up again. "Will you _please_ …" his arms spread outward from his shoulders … "sit _down?!"_

I plopped back into the chair and waited impatiently.

The room was very silent for about thirty seconds. He sat there with his fingers stroking lightly over the layer of fuzz on his chin. The wooden beads woven through his greying cornrows clacked softly. His shining black skin and dark eyes reflected the light from the window, and I guessed that he was getting his thoughts together, deciding what to say, and the manner in which to say it.

Exasperated, but determined, I sat glaring at him.

"Tell me what you actually know," he finally said, "about what happened to Dr. House and Dr. Wilson."

I shrugged. "Not much … only rumors … that they were killed in a freak accident on the highway years ago. My parents talked about it some, because they were mom's doctors a long time back. I always got the impression that my folks weren't telling the whole story, but I never thought to ask before now. Why?"

"I knew your parents," Billy stated.

"Yeah. I figured that out myself. Were you ever going to tell me?"

"Probably not. It was an unpleasant surprise when we finally discovered who you were. Leather went back through his personal records when he began to wonder about you. He found out first. Remember when he hurt his hand? Screwed up the knuckles? He punched out a brick wall that day when he made the connection. After that, we pretty much knew things were gonna go south."

"You can't blame that on me!" I snapped. "How was I supposed to know Gregory House wasn't dead … but here in Michigan?" I felt a little defensive, although I had no reason to be.

"Nobody's blaming you. We always lived with the feeling that someone would find out eventually."

"So will you _please_ tell me what the great secret is? What were you afraid of? Why is Leather hiding his real identity from the whole world? What … is the big freaking mystery?"

He glowered. "Well, sit back and get comfortable. This is gonna take awhile. Also, for what it's worth, Leather is gonna go ballistic when he finds out you're sweet on him ..."

"I think he already knows. He's been watching me like a hawk. And if he has any questions on that subject, he's going to find out tomorrow when I talk to him. Like I said awhile ago, I'm tired of playing games with both of you. I'm listening!"

Billy leaned forward and placed both elbows on his desk. He seemed resigned. Even relieved to get this distasteful chore over with.

I had no idea what I was in for.

"They were attending a medical conference in New York City. There was an altercation, and Jimmy and Gregg walked right into the middle of it. There was a man with a gun, and he threatened to shoot Jimmy and another doctor. Gregg came between them trying to protect Jimmy, and the gunman ended up breaking through a banister and falling about twenty feet to his death in the hotel lobby.

"Since Jimmy had a death grip on the guy's legs, the cops questioned him about his motives. It was a freakin' mess … and the whole business hit the morning papers with big black headlines about this doctor from Jersey being involved in a murder investigation. Some stupid reporter was pissed because the cops locked them out, and they got no pictures of blood or dead bodies …

"Gregg and Jimmy left for home the next morning, thinking things had been cleared up. But the cops came after them to take Jimmy back for questioning. Then the cops backed off again, all of a sudden … and the _reason_ they backed off has to do with the secrecy."

Billy paused a moment, contemplating how much to reveal to me. Then he continued. "I gave Gregg a piece of dangerous new technology to look over, and he used it to make the cops abort. There was never any trace of the message on their comm. channel. So four cops got their asses in trouble too.

"In the meantime, out on the interstate there was a small airplane with big engine trouble. It came down and hit a gasoline tanker head-on. Everything went up like an atomic bomb, and Gregg and Jimmy were just at the wrong place at the wrong time.

"Jimmy never knew what hit him. Bone splinters went into his brain. They pronounced him dead three times … but he came out of it every time. He's in an institution called 'Mountain View'. My brother and I own the place. Nobody knows that but Gregg and me. Jimmy breathes on his own, but there's nothing left of his mind. He sits. Twenty-four hours a day. They call it 'minimally conscious' and there's nothing they can do. He's on around-the-clock care, and he's in borderline health. Gregg would die rather than allow him to be exploited by the press.

"Gregg House was another story. His right arm was broken in four places. His legs were pinned under the car's dashboard. His bum leg was a mess, and the scar in his thigh was pulled away from the bone. He had kidney and liver damage, and lost his spleen. He didn't regain consciousness for almost a month. He couldn't get out of bed, except in a wheelchair, for nearly a year.

"Jimmy's family spread the word that Jimmy had died. They hid him in hospice after hospice. When his parents finally died and his brother left town, Gregg and I talked. He called my brother Whit, and had Jimmy transferred to Mountain View where he's been ever since. That's where Gregg goes every month … to spend time with Jimmy. I think he still has hope that someday Jimmy will come around and know who he is. But that's not likely.

"They were close, Gresham. Really close.

"And by the way, Gresham … the accident?"

"Yeah?" I could barely speak. I had known none of this.

"There was a witness. There's a scan. Fortunately, Leather has it. He bought it for more than it's worth. But that's Leather. The witness is still alive. Leather still pays him to keep his mouth shut. It probably doesn't matter anymore … everybody knows what a Zai-Zo is."

Billy sat back in his chair and looked across at me with resignation in his eyes.

I was numb. For now, I could think of nothing intelligent to say. I had demanded the truth … and now I knew.

I leaned back in the chair, shocked into silence. I had pressed Billy until he was forced to tell me everything. Now I wasn't sure it was all worth it.

I wasn't sure which was worse: the torture of not understanding … or the unbearable pain of knowing …

#

140


	25. Chapter 25

"Whisper of the Wind"

Chapter 25

"In the Morning There Shall be Rainbows"

January 2025

The Next Day

Gresham:

I knew I wouldn't sleep last night, and I didn't. Half-hour here … twenty minutes there, the rest of the time I was wide awake, staring at the ceiling. It rained awhile; making worse slop of the slop that was already out there. I watched the raindrops shadowing their way down the window beyond the closed blinds like little wiggle worms down the trunk of a tree. I tossed and turned, threw off the covers, scrambled to pull them up

again. Abstract moments … jittering away …

_Guilty conscience? No, dammit!!_

_My head was full of the sad truths I'd gleaned from Billy Travis, and they all went round and round inside my skull like a kaleidoscope of carnival images … round and round… on an endless loop. I wasn't sure what, if anything, it all meant … except that I knew I was going to cry when I faced Leather in another couple of hours._

_I have thought of Leather so often lately: this tragic figure of a man who deals with his sense of hopelessness by daring to hope, but trying not to let it show. I have watched him time and time again … handling his disability by denying it. I have laughed briefly at his keen sense of humor, but it is barbed and often cruel. _

_He is a conundrum, a man out of a dime novel, a cardboard 'bad guy' from a B Movie. He has lost everything that composed his individual identity as a man. He has also lost the most important human being in his life and is left with an empty husk. He survives the loss by pretending it isn't so. Dr. Wilson is alive, but non-compos-mentis. _

_Leather is a modern-day Sydney Carton: "I care for no man, and no man cares for me." He is in self-imposed exile from the world._

You've got it all wrong, Gregory House! People can't care about you if you don't let them know you're still walking the Earth.

I wish that you would throw off the burden of "Leather" and let Gregory House return to his rightful place. I would like that better than anything else in the world.

OH GOD!!

I sat up in my bed, sweated wet and in tears. The dreams … visions … whatever they were … held me in thrall, and at first I couldn't catch my breath.

Then actual existence returned in gradual increments to settle about me again. I looked around and realized it wasn't really raining. The world outside my window was quiet, dark and bereft of moon. I could see the distant line of area lights that lifted the deepest shadows away from the commons. I'd been in a fantasy world of my own making, and it was a very frightening place indeed.

I sighed and reached over to snap on the bedside light. It was 6:00 a.m., time to get up in another half hour.

In the shower I let the hot water rush over me, rinsing away some of the lingering fragments of the dream-fantasy. Did I really believe any of that stuff that had filled my imagination with such a sense of regret and horror?

Probably.

I wondered if reality would in any way resemble those dark images…

Not likely.

This morning's rounds and the hours in the lecture hall would be difficult. As I'd remembered from primary and secondary school and my first four years of college, the first week back after Christmas holidays were always a bitch!

This time it was going to be worse. I knew half the truth. Today I was determined to learn the rest.

Billy was in the cafeteria waiting for me. His eyes were dark and smoldering. I wasn't the only one who'd had a bad night. I decided he'd either just come off night shift, or was waiting to go in for more overtime. I refrained from asking. I didn't really care.

All sounds in the large room seemed to seep out through cracks in the wall. Everything faded until Billy Travis and I were the only ones there. He was the only personI saw, and I guess it was the same for him.

"How ya doin?" He asked.

"Okay …" I answered. "I guess. Did you talk to Leather and tell him everything I said yesterday?"

"No."

"No??"

"No, Gresham … I didn't." He couldn't meet my eyes.

"Why?"

"I have no right," he replied softly, and I had no trouble hearing his words. "If anyone's ever going to tell him about what we talked about yesterday, it'll have to be you. Also, anything else you want to know about this business … the rest of it has to come from him. You deserve a chance to talk to him and try to get his attention in a way that I can't. I can't tell you anything else about Jimmy either. Leather has to! Did you really think I could be that callous?"

"The thought had crossed my mind. But if you're being honorable, I appreciate that.

Thanks."

The air between us seemed to fill up again, and the regular noises of a busy cafeteria resumed at fever pitch. We had nothing more to say to each other right then. I think we recognized the fact that we each needed a breather.

I forgot about any thoughts I might have had about breakfast. I lingered only a second longer, then broke eye contact, turned on my heel and walked with determination in the direction of the teaching hospital. I had fifteen minutes until first rounds.

Leather was already in the Spider Banks, in the Hub, seated in his Eames chair. His cane hung from the arm. Both legs were propped on the worktable when I got off the elevator at 4:00 p.m. He didn't look well. He was pale, and there were dark circles beneath his eyes that I didn't like. His clothing hung on him and the dark dress shirt was full of wrinkles that made him look like he'd slept in it for a couple of nights. I'd been anxious to see him again … but not like this.

His hands were busy massaging his temples and rubbing across his forehead, kneading and kneading, as though he had an annoying headache that he couldn't get rid of. I could see his eyes surreptitiously following my progress across the room to where I dropped my backpack beside my chair, removed my coat and hat and sat down. Then his attention flitted away again, and his eyes closed quickly, lest I catch him watching me.

I didn't move. Just sat there, looking at him sadly, wishing he would let me in … allow me behind the walls of that mental stronghold with the moat in front and alligators guarding the waters.

Never had I felt so close, yet so far away from someone. He was shut off from the world by a personal force field that denied sound or sight or conversation, or even comfort.

"Leather?" I said it softly, but it was as though I hadn't said it at all. He paid no heed, just kept kneading his temples with those long fingers.

His right hand had healed, I noticed. The knuckles were pink and slightly scarred, but that would fade in time. I was glad of that.

He would not acknowledge me. I wondered if he knew what was going on with me. I knew Billy had told him about the book. Was he wondering whether or not I was a threat to his long-held secrets? I didn't know. I could only speculate.

It was quiet for a long time between us.

Finally, when it became obvious that there was to be another impasse, I sighed.

_Fish or cut bait, Gresham!_

"Dr. House. If you won't talk to me, I'll blab everything I know about you."

The blue eyes opened, not in surprise or astonishment. He had been expecting this confrontation ever since the day he had cold-cocked the wall. His stare was piercing and angry. If it had been a knife, I would be dead without mercy. His voice, however, held no anger; only bitter disappointment.

"What have I done to you that you would do that to me?"

I looked him in the eye and did not back down. "I needed to get your attention. It seems I have done that. I also need to say 'thank you' … a few years overdue."

That did it. His hands came down and he glared at me with a mixture of suspicion and disbelief. "Thank me? For what?"

"For saving my mother's life. And for inspiring me to become a doctor. Someday I would like to be as good as you."

The confrontation was already looking to become a conversation.

I struggled with a tendency toward astonishment that it had been this easy. He continued to stare at me, and the look now held a strange combination of question and appraisal. "Is this an attempt at appeasing the old cripple? Do you think I've lost my mental acuity in my old age?"

"No. Do _you_ actually think I would be that dumb?"

"Wasn't sure for a while. Are you?"

"No way. All this stuff that's been happening around us isn't my fault. It isn't yours either. Or anybody else's. It was just time for the truth to be told. Time for the bears to come out of the woods. Nobody can screw with fate, Leather. Not even you. Fate always finds a way to screw you back."

"That's a pretty obscure way for you to cover up the fact that you were digging around, trying to expose me."

"You're wrong! I wasn't."

"Well what then?"

"Everything I found out fell into my lap. I saw Dr. Cuddy's book in the library. Inside it was the same picture of you and Dr. Wilson that I've had since I was a kid …"

"Who? Picture? Oh yeah … Cuddy's book … go on."

"It was about Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital … and that was the place where my mother went for treatment when I was a kid. I wanted to read more about it, so I ordered my own copy. It came just before Christmas, and I took it home with me … for my parents … as a gift. But they were very secretive about it and wouldn't tell me why."

"Why would they do that?"

"I don't know. I'm still pissed off about it. It seems that everybody I've asked about you, seems to want to protect you for some unknown damned reason! Then I heard my parents talking late at night. Everything they said about 'Dr. Gregory House' and 'Dr. James Wilson' had some connection to you! To the man I knew as Leather! They even referred to you two by your first names. I got curious. I read the book, cover to cover, and started to put two and two together …"

"And you got five."

"Something like that. I have an original copy of one of those pictures. It's in a frame on my dressing table back in my dorm. I had it since I was in sixth grade. So don't tell me I was spying. Things just … came out. Tell me about the rest of the pictures."

I watched him. His features were turning thoughtful. He sat forward in his chair and carefully lowered his feet to the floor. He reached into his untidy shirt and drew a vial of pills out of it. He thumbed off the cap and took two of them dry. Ugh! Then he put them back. It was a delaying tactic.

"The photographer's name was Emma Sloan," he said at last. "My team saved her life and the life of her fetus by operating on the infant in the womb before it was viable. She returned to the hospital after he was born, and took those photographs as a thank you. They inspired Dr. Cuddy … Rothberg, now … to write a few lines about each of them and turn them into a book. And that's it. The photo of Dr. Wilson and me … it was taken while we were talking to your parents. So they knew about the pictures. It must have come back to them when you took the book home. And yes … we liked them. "After a year or so we were all on a first-name basis. Then we lost track. In medicine, nothing is ever permanent … as you will soon find out, if you haven't already."

"Except for you and Dr. Wilson ..."

His eyes turned hard again, and he turned his head away. I had hit a nerve, and I was sorry. I said so. "I didn't mean that the way it sounded …"

Leather struggled to stand. He grasped his cane from the back of the chair and took a few steps in the direction of the break room. His bad leg buckled without warning, and he stumbled. He hissed a painful breath through his teeth and I reached out to grab him before he fell.

Then he was in my arms.

Instinctively I hugged him to me and we were embracing; his warm body and mine, not a position we would have wished for at that moment, but one that happened in the same manner in which the rest of the saga had happened. It was like being caught within a vortex of raw emotion that carried us onward, far beyond our physical control.

I drew a painful breath and so did he. But we stood together unmoving, breathing down each other's necks, his tall body towering over my own shorter one. Comfort was relative; support of one another was as natural as seeing or hearing.

"You loved him," I said.

"Yes," he said.

"I think I love you."

"I know, Gresham …" His voice hitched, as though he was trying not to weep.

_Now what?_

_# _

145


	26. Chapter 26

"Whisper of the Wind"

"Whisper of the Wind"

Chapter 26

"I Must Go Where the Wild Goose Goes …"

June 8, 2008

1:51 p.m.

Gregory House had seen it coming; heard the roar and the slap and the rattle. Saw the plane disappear momentarily behind the abutment up ahead.

In the split second before it hit, his mind's eye returned to September 11, 2001. The second hi-jacked plane went out of sight behind the South Tower of the World Trade Center the same way … and then everything exploded into a fiery cataclysm of smoke and flame and terror and death.

Gregg House saw his best friend's face transform in less than a microsecond from an intelligent and thoughtful human being to a mindless vegetable. The impact of the airplane's propeller on the driver's side door turned the beautiful dark, Hershey-Chocolate eyes into blank, black rings with no substance, no intelligence. House saw Wilson's blood-spatter spray the windshield, the visor, the steering wheel and Wilson's sport jacket. All in the time it took for his own heart to beat just once.

Then the rear driver's side of the maroon van and the hood of the green Mercury rammed the passenger side with an impact that sent the old Dodge careening into the unyielding, steel reinforced concrete pillar of the overpass stanchion. The bones of his right arm parted beneath the blow, and both legs were crushed under the crumpled dash. House screamed as he had not screamed since August of 1999 when the blood clot and muscle infarction had taken away the normal use of his right leg forever. And here destiny came again. Lightning did indeed strike twice in the same place. He was still screaming when consciousness fled.

Two black and white cruisers, which had been discreetly following the Dynasty, pulled to a screeching halt when their drivers saw the plane careening out of the sky. The little aircraft was dropping lower and lower, barrel rolling now in a tight spiral, straight for a lugging gasoline tanker struggling to accelerate into the flow of traffic on I-78, directly above them.

The lawmen were powerless. A chain reaction was imminent, and the most they could do now was call quickly for reinforcements and try to aid survivors of an Armageddon in the making.

When it hit, the police were already out of their cars, two of them running toward the vehicles just entering the underpass. Something that fell off the airplane impacted one of the vehicles under there. The fiery collision was doubly dangerous because it was immediately obscured by thick clouds of black smoke.

Officers in the second black and white hurried across to the steep grade that led to the upper highway, where half a dozen cars had already ballooned skyward like bombed troop carriers in a war zone.

There was a Subaru with its nose buried in the Dynasty's trunk, its radiator hissing ominously. A quick check proved that its occupants were buried in their air bags and shaken up, but not seriously injured. "Turn off your ignition!" One of the cops shouted as they ran past. Both men had microphones to their lips, requesting backup. Air bags

were deployed everywhere, some of them already deflated and hanging spent from open windows.

A little Ford Ranger was tossed against the underpass buttress in the opposite lane, and two or three more cars were stalled, having fishtailed directly behind it. Traffic on that side of the road was backing up bumper-to-bumper as far as the eye could see. Everyone involved in that tangle was shaken also, but at first glance, seemed okay.

Up ahead, a maroon Dodge van with two adults and two pre-teen boys had skidded hard into the passenger side of the elderly Chrysler sedan they'd been following. No … not a Chrysler … a dark grey Dodge. No air bags there. Both cops pulled their flashlights and studied the family from the van. The male driver was bent over and holding a hand to his head, but it looked like he was okay. The woman beside him was picking at him feebly, still numb from shock. Both boys were okay, standing wide-eyed and silent, close to their parents. One of them had a small cut on his chin, awed by the speed with which things could go bad. The DVD in the back seat was still playing "Harry Potter" …

Both police went to the next vehicle, a fairly new green Mercury Milan; its front end crumpled into the side of the van and also entrenched in the passenger side of the Dodge. Its driver was a fat, middle-aged guy in a suit, who had clambered out his passenger-side door and had his back turned to the injured men in the older car. He was already chattering into his cell phone and walking quickly in the opposite direction.

"Don't leave the area!" One of the cops shouted.

The man mumbled something and kept on going.

The Dodge, when they could finally get to it, was totaled. Besides the crunched trunk area, the driver's side was dented inward and the driver bled profusely from a head wound. There was blood and brain tissue spattered all over everything. A cop reached inside and turned off the ignition. This car would go out of here on a rollback. So would the Milan and the Dodge van. Probably the Subie. He checked to see that all three motors had been shut off. They had.

The passenger in the grey Dodge was a tall, lanky guy, half crushed upon himself by the crumpled front fender and t-boned door. The driver of the van was already rounding up everybody in the vicinity who was healthy and ambulatory. They had to get the men out of the car before something sparked down here and started another fire.

People who were not volunteers, or were in the company of small children, started walking toward the open highway, out and away from the underpass, to safety.

The man in the driver's seat of the Dodge was easier to reach than the passenger. The driver of the van removed his shirt and rolled it to stem the blood flow from the other man's head wound. They wondered if he would make it.

While they were in the process of lifting him out, the thunder of heavy aircraft cut through the air with a roar. Three Army medical helicopters landed at strategic points as close to the underpass and overpass disasters as they could get.

Up above, ambulances and EMT buses were also converging at the spot where the plane hit. The gruesome task of triage had begun. One of the chopper pilots, with his medical team, hurried below to assist the two cops and their band of stragglers in getting the other injured man out of the crumpled car.

Twenty people took turns pulling and hauling at the twisted metal on the passenger side of the battered Dynasty. Finally, some of the metal let loose, screeching away from broken rivets and surrendering to the quarter ton of desperate muscle pulling on it.

The first medicopter took off with the Dynasty's driver, whose heart had already failed twice and had to be defibrillated into starting up again. They had to hurry, or they would lose him. The head wound was critical.

Another copter settled close behind the Subaru with the hissing radiator. Its crew bailed out and hurried into the smoking tangle, evidently directed there by home base. The tall, slender passenger was unconscious and bleeding. They had to stabilize multiple broken bones before they could even think about moving him away from the accident scene.

With help from the two cops and their volunteers, they brought a gurney and bagged medical equipment from the aircraft and placed his broken body upon it. He was quickly encased in temporary splints and bandages, intubated, administered strong narcotics, and a powerful sedative to assure that he would not wake up to unbearable pain. From the look and feel of the alternate hardness and sponginess in the area of his abdomen, it was believed that his liver and kidneys had taken severe trauma from the damaged metal. He would be in surgery for a long time.

If he lived …

The second Sikorsky lifted him skyward.

The accident scene took two full days to clean up. Most of the gasoline burned off the highway and left ominous black scars on the landscape.

HazMat Crews removed parts of the tanker truck and the airplane with dump trucks and scrub buckets.

There was not enough viable evidence left for anyone but CSI teams to pick through.

Nothing was ever determined to be the exact cause of the Cessna's malfunction. There was not enough of it left to hazard a guess.

No lawsuits were ever brought by injured parties or accident survivors … although a few ambulance chasers tried their best …

July 12, 2008

Awaking from the coma.

Gregg:

Back in 2001, a second damned airplane disappeared for an instant behind the _south_ tower of the World Trade Center. Then a firestorm blew outward in all directions. _Two_ planes! Not an accident. We were under attack! Life on Earth was drastically altered from that day forward.

Now it's altered again! I saw a third plane in my mind just before I opened my eyes ... and my head hurt like hell.

I first awoke to shadows of night, still filled with the chill of horror I'd felt when I saw that little plane heading for the overpass on I-78. It was the same moment I'd seen Wilson's mind go away … along with the silly smile on his face. I shuddered at the image.

Then, momentarily, I felt his essence touch my mind very gently and gradually withdraw again.

_Wilson?_

I must have activated the hell out of my bedside monitors at that moment, because suddenly there were nurses all over me. I remember instinctively trying to reach for the sheet to pull it up before somebody got an eyeful. I instinctively knew I had been in a similar situation before.

I couldn't move my arms. The right one was in a plaster cast thick enough to choke an elephant. The other one was so full of monitors and IVs that I felt a little like a biological junction box. There was a pulse-ox on my finger and another IV affixed to the back of my left hand. I could feel the Foley attached to my pecker … and I could also feel its staticky stimulation all the way up to my belly button.

_Oh … Fuck!_

Below that my right leg was in traction, the bandages so cumbersome that the whole mess was supported by a travois sling with a pulley arrangement hanging from the ceiling. I could see the IV bags full of narcotic painkillers that would float the Queen Mary, and they drained into the damned leg with a steady drip-drip-drip that told me whatever was wrong this time, they were probably waiting for me to wake up so I could give them permission to lop it off.

_Fat fucking chance!_

My left leg was in a cast to match the one on my other arm. I thought of the Stephen King novel, "Misery", and wondered if I had a "Number-One Fan" chopping at me periodically with a sledgehammer. It sure-as-hell felt like it.

Everything that moved, hurt. My gut was full of stitches that itched like hell, but I couldn't scratch. My stomach felt as though it had been completely rearranged. My mouth was so dry I could have spit cobwebs …

The nurses surrounding my bed were standing around like dolts with stupid expressions on their faces. What the hell? Hadn't they ever seen a man in traction before with all his family jewels hanging out?

I tried to ask for something to drink, but all that came out of my mouth was a croak. I grunted.

"Uh! Uh!"

They looked at each other and their faces froze. One of them was on the other side of the room talking on a cell phone.

Finally a little blonde twit with schmooky hair tumbled to the fact that I might finally be waking up and dry as dust. She scooped up a few ice chips and placed a couple of them on my tongue. If she hadn't been so yucky looking, with her eyebrow stud and black mascara, I might have kissed her.

The one on the phone hung up and cautiously approached my bed. Immediately thereafter, a familiar presence in wrinkled scrubs and dark hair flattened on one side, walked into the room in paper bedroom slippers.

_Dr. Cuddy! How nice of you to take time to visit your old college classmate …_

"House …" Her voice was whispery and there were tears in her eyes.

With a few succinct words she sent the novice nurses scattering to the four winds, and then pulled a visitors' chair close to my bedside. Her hands were all over me, checking my leads, adjusting the IVs, running her hands across my skin as though making sure I was for real. "You finally decided to rejoin us, huh?" There was a smile behind the tears, which puzzled me.

The ice chips had freed up my larynx to make noises by this time, and I looked at her in a manner that made her smile, just a little cockeyed. "What?"

"You've been unconscious for thirty days, or close to it, House. You almost died. Twice."

I grumped at her. My voice was still croaky, but I made her understand the cardboard words. "Nothin' I haven't done before. I'm an expert at it. What happened to me?"

"You were in a serious accident, House. You were hurt badly, and it's going to take you a long time to recover." She paused a moment, and looked away to compose herself.

Here it comes …the old song and dance …

"They may have to take your leg. It's still touch and go. The trauma you suffered has weakened you to the point that you'll only be able to recover fully if the damned leg is removed. I'm sorry."

I shut her up by ignoring her. "Where's Wilson?" I knew exactly where he was, but my mind wouldn't fit itself around the truth. Maybe I could join him. I could take my leg with me, wherever that was …

"His mind is gone, House. He's in a hospice, and his family is waiting for him to die. His brother Tom was here twice to see you …"

"While I was in a coma?"

"I'm so sorry. Dr. Wilson is going to die. He must be buried within twenty-four hours. Jewish tradition. You won't be able to go …"

I had a feeling Cuddy was somehow left in the dark. If Wilson hadn't died after a month, he wasn't likely to do so. I didn't press it. Tom Wilson would soon find out that I was consciousness, and he would have no choice but to tell me the truth, though I knew in my heart Jimmy wasn't going to die.

I sighed heavily, exhausted for some damned reason.

Cuddy saw, and stood up to leave. Reaching across, she readjusted the drip on one of the IVs, and I knew which one when my eyelids instantly began to droop.

"Think about giving up the leg, House. This time, it can only help."

I felt her lean down to kiss my forehead. "Sleep now," she whispered.

Aw … Wilson …you just pulled off the biggest snow job of your damn life!

An old song by Frankie Laine began to filter through my mind. I don't know why; I hadn't heard it in years:

"I must go where the wild goose goes … and I must know what the wild goose knows … wild goose, brother goose, which is best … a tortured soul or a heart at rest …"

I did not hear Cuddy leave the room.

Of course, paper slippers are a lot quieter than stiletto heels …

… click-clacking on the tiles …

#

152


	27. Chapter 27

"Whisper of the Wind"

Chapter 27

"Disjointed Thoughts and Confusion"

July 13, 2008

Gregory House:

Morning sunlight burst around the corner and spilled through the window of the private cubicle, pounding like a cop-at- the-door on his closed eyelids. His body stiffened, startled, and he wrenched his face in the opposite direction in an effort to ease the unexpected jab of kaleidoscopic brilliance.

He'd been jolted fully awake, his abused body radiating pain through every nerve fiber.

_Jesus!_

Someone was across the room, standing beside the window, turning the little shaft that closed the blinds. The brightness of the sun smarting on his skin dimmed instantly and he turned to see who his benefactor was. All he could see was a big black hole in the sudden pocket of shadows. In spite of himself, the snarky comment that waited in his brain melted slowly on his tongue.

"Goddamnit, Gregg," came the deep teasing voice, "can't you keep your weary ass out of trouble for five minutes? Every time I think you've finally learned your lesson, you turn around and screw it up again!"

"Hello Billy," House grunted. "Where've you been?"

Travis turned away from the window and walked across the room, moving casually about the other man's bed, checking IVs, Foley, med and feeding tubes and dressings.

"What do you mean … 'where have I been?' I've been here every damn day since you were flown in here and admitted. Nice of you to finally wake up and just lay there, asking dumb questions …"

"Oh yeah … I forgot!" The snark was back in an instant. "I was tired as hell, so I decided to sleep until July."

"C'mon, Boss," Billy said. "Knock it off. It's me. Billy. You look like shit!"

"Yeah, well … get used to it. I'm gonna look like this pretty much for the foreseeable future. Like I'm in the Army now … and this is the uniform of the day." His eyes swept the expanse of his body and the barren field of white plaster and white dressings.

Travis was uncomfortable with the sarcasm and the underlying hopelessness that seemed to motivate it. Gregory House sounded like he was in the process of giving up. It wasn't like him.

"I know this sucks, Boss, but you can't quit now. You can't quit because I've got news for you. I wouldn't be here if I didn't believe you're made of stronger stuff. You gotta dodge this bullet, man. You gotta dodge the bullet!"

"Why?" House spat out the question like an expletive.

Travis bent over the bed and stared down at his plaster-encased friend with stern black eyes. His voice came out in a thin, softly modulated rumble that shook Gregory House to his core. "'Cause Jimmy Wilson needs you … more than you know. He can't ask for your help, but he needs you."

"Christ! He doesn't need some old codger who can't even move." Gregory House's anger was instant and venomous. He recalled the gentle touch of Wilson's essence that greeted him when he'd awakened the night before, and then its fade to nothing.

"No, Boss. No. Not what I meant. His family reported him dead. They're sick of the publicity and the newshounds on their doorstep. They hid him in a hospice. They couldn't tell you because you were still unconscious. Your doctors kept you sedated because of the pain. You're busted up pretty bad. People think Jimmy's dead … even Dr. Cuddy. It was just in the papers. His 'funeral' was a day ago. Private ceremony. He needs you more than ever now. He has no one else."

Billy towered over Gregg's hurt right side. He touched his friend's right cheek with the backs of his fingers, and was not surprised when House pulled away with a hiss of pain.

"I _knew_ he wasn't gonna die!" Gregg hissed. "Or are you puttin' me on? Trying to make me mad as hell?"

"No, Gregg. You know I wouldn't lie to you about this."

There was a long moment of silence. If he'd been capable of covering his face with his hands, Billy would not have seen the tears that sprang suddenly to his eyes. House was powerless to stop them.

"Tell me … is he really … ?"

Gregg … you're right about him being alive, and you don't have to hide how you feel ..."

"You don't _know_ how I feel! You haven't got a _clue_ how I feel …" He was half whiny with self-pity and hurt and grief. There was a sob barely repressed in the hitch of his voice that spoke volumes, and had nothing to do with physical pain.

William Travis had known Gregory House a long time. He and Gregg and Jimmy Wilson used to relax from their demanding careers by restoring old cars in their limited leisure time.

Billy had, even then, been at the top of his game as a nursing supervisor at Princeton-Plainsboro. Gregg was a resident and Jimmy a new intern when they'd met and became friends.

Over the many years of their acquaintance, Billy had been a silent eyewitness to the increasing rapport between the two other men. He watched from the background with a private smile, wondering if they would eventually recognize what lay waiting if they chose to examine it.

Billy had been there when Gregg suffered the infarction. Jimmy was on his honeymoon. Billy stood by and watched the delay in diagnosis, outraged with the physician's insistence that Gregg was a drug seeker. But he was not qualified to intervene. He stood by in anger and nearly got himself fired as he witnessed the delay in medical treatment that transformed Gregory House from a graceful, athletic man, to a permanent cripple.

Billy had seen James Wilson's quiet anguish when he returned from Hawaii and sat glued to Gregg's side through weeks of pain and regret and harsh narcotics to stem the man's suffering. Helplessly they listened and watched when House's bitter anger drove his live-in lover, Stacy Ames away, sobbing in frustration on the day she finally fled from Gregg's life.

Now, House was badly injured again. History was repeating itself. He was finally going to lose his leg. But what was even worse than potential amputation was the terrible loss of Jimmy Wilson.

Billy knew Jimmy was still alive, but he did not know how to convince Gregg. Billy finally told the simple truth. He blurted it out because he knew no other way to do it in a manner that Gregory House could accept.

House never told a soul what he already knew in his heart … Wilson was there and Billy was preaching to the choir.

Today, silence stretched between them.

House's physical pain was accelerating, his mental pain giving it impetus, and the two together combined to make his suffering unpalatable. Watching him, Billy was reminded that James Wilson once said that House's physical pain was a psychosomatic response to truths he could not tolerate …

Billy saw the agony in Gregg's face; saw the vein standing out in the middle of his forehead, and then the squeal of the monitor alarms. Automatically he sprang to the IV stanchions and upped the pain meds.

As House melted back into panting submission, his body gradually relaxed. "Thanks," he finally said. "Sorry …"

Billy nodded. He was still adjusting IVs and Foley. Everything needed adjusted, refilled, or changed. The alarms brought the nurses, and it seemed, Foreman and Cuddy right behind.

Billy could not talk to House any further. Tom Wilson said that no one but House was to be told about his brother's survival.

The nurses attended to the scut work and the careful sponging of House's vulnerable body. Dr. Cuddy and Dr. Foreman attended to the med refills and BP and checking heartbeat and respiration and other bodily functions.

Billy stooped and gathered his ailing friend into his strong arms. Held him close, just above the mattress, while the bed linens were changed; while the traction unit was adjusted, and while fresh pillows were brought in to cradle his broken arm.

House allowed the embrace from the big man in stoic silence and kept his head averted. He wept in silence where no one could see the tears. He'd already figured out why James had been committed to a hospice. Tom thought the two of them were lovers, and he was afraid the "stigma" might rub off. Never mind that his brother had suddenly become a vegetable: Tom had no desire to be declared right about his worst suspicions.

Gregg kept his awareness also to himself.

His crippled leg was a useless lump of misery. The pain was an ongoing, insistent thing. The strong pain meds barely touched it and he was beginning to fear that he would certainly go mad this time. He could not tolerate much more of the agony, and neither could he continue to hide it from others.

Billy said he should dodge the bullet. But the bullet was straight and true, and it was close to hitting its mark. Life was cruel. He moaned aloud in spite of all his resolutions not to when Billy lowered him carefully to the mattress again and retreated to the doorway. His pain was a living thing, and it was on the prowl.

From somewhere, Dr. Cuddy produced another IV bag, which she hooked deftly into one of those already there. He watched lethargically, not even interested enough to ask questions. Cuddy smiled at him briefly and reached over to touch his cheek in an awkward attempt at comfort. He made an angry face, but began to notice that the pain was receding. He looked at her again, his expression changing to a frown of puzzlement and relief.

She winked and smiled and waved. She waved to Billy Travis also, and then grasped Eric Foreman's arm and propelled him out of the room.

Billy Travis stood in the doorway with his arms folded across his chest. "Feeling better?"

He asked.

House nodded. "What _is_ that stuff?"

"It's called Drenivin," Billy said. "It's new. Something from my brother's lab. Don't ask!"

He walked back into the room and pulled a chair beside the bed. "By the way, I have something for you."

House's eyebrows went up. His pain continued to recede. He took a deep breath and released it. "What now? I need to know what the hell Cuddy just gave me."

"I'm getting to all that."

Billy reached into the pocket of his white scrubs and withdrew a tiny box wrapped in burgundy paper. A corner of the paper was torn and had been mended with clear tape. A raggedy little white ribbon was also clumsily affixed.

The name _Gregory House_ was written in very small chicken-scratch handwriting beneath the ribbon.

Wilson's writing … oh God …

"What _is_ that?" House was frowning, feigning disinterest. "Looks like it came through a war zone …"

"Pretty close," Billy assured him.

House rolled his shoulders in an effort to stem the spreading stiffness he had not noticed before the agony of his leg had begun to abate. Billy smiled in understanding. "You okay?"

House glared at him. "Unhh … yeah." He eyed the box again. "You don't expect me to try to open that thing … do you?"

"Nah," Billy said. "But it's yours, and I need your permission."

"What's in it? Where the hell did it come from?" But he knew.

"You want it opened? … or not?" Billy kept the banter going as long as possible, trying to keep House distracted. Things were about to get dicey. He knew very well what it was, and where it had come from.

"Go ahead," House growled, finally.

Billy removed the damaged paper wrapping and laid it aside. He lifted the lid. Inside, folded meticulously beneath a small wad of cotton, a note written on tissue paper unfolded from within. Billy opened it the rest of the way, moving delicately with his large fingers:

"Dear House,

I saw this at the mall. It looked just like you.

You would probably need _two_ monocles though.

Its chest seems to have dropped, just as yours will

In a few more years.

I especially liked the cane.

Happy Birthday,

Wilson."

Things got very quiet. House glared indignantly. His eyes twinkled with unshed tears. He looked away.

Billy upended the tiny box into his palm. What fell out of it was even tinier, and quite remarkable. House stole a glance back and then watched avidly.

It was a miniature silver-plated figure of "Mr. Peanut". The tiny thing gleamed with precise machine-carved features. Crafted in the shape of an unshelled peanut, it did indeed resemble a fat little man whose chest had "dropped" to become a portly little belly.

"Mr. Peanut" wore a tiny top hat, tiny black-enameled shoes with white enameled spats. There was a black enameled cane in its left hand, and its white-gloved right hand daintily clasped the brim of the black top hat in a smart salute. One leg was crossed over the other and the monocled right eye was opaquely obscured. The left eye, however, was not an eye at all, but a delicate, precisely cut diamond chip.

Obviously the small, elegant statue had not come cheap. Wilson never did anything halfway.

Billy sat back and held the little bauble upright in the flattened palm of his hand.

"Whoa!"

"Yeah," House echoed. "Whoa!" He was incapable of further words for a moment, and lay still, covering up strong emotions by staring at the ceiling.

Billy waited him out. He stood Wilson's gift delicately on the bedside stand where House could see it, and straightened in his chair.

Finally he spoke. "Boss?"

House slowly turned his head to regard the compassionate black face of the huge man beside him. "Yeah, Billy. I know. My last reminder of Wilson. He mentioned something about it briefly while we were in the car. His presence in my miserable life was one of the few things that kept me sane, you know. But now … all I have left of him is a silly note … and 'Mr. Peanut'."

"Wouldn't you like to know how I came by it?" Trying to keep the mood light so this sad, injured man would not lose his composure, Billy smiled at Gregg House expectantly.

House said nothing, so Billy began to speak … softly, gently, unfolding the story of how Gregg got back his final birthday gift from James Wilson.

"When the cleanup boys loaded your old beater on the rollback, this little box fell out Jimmy's side of the car and landed in the dirt. One of the kids from the family in the van saw it fall and ran after the men to give it to them. One of them stuck it in his pants pocket, thanked the kid, gave him five bucks for being honest, and forgot about it.

"Later, one of the cops called Tom Wilson's cell phone and told Tom that all your stuff was being sent to the Princeton police station. Then the same cop called back again and said there was a gift box of some kind still there. No one mentioned its size or anything, so Tom Wilson drove sixty miles back, and then found out it was this little bitty box … I guess he was pretty pissed."

Billy heard a slight chuckle and looked at Gregg. His friend was still staring at the ceiling, and his face was moist. But he was listening closely to what Billy was saying. Encouraged, Billy continued.

"Tom and his parents knew you were banged up pretty bad and in the hospital, so he called and told me to come pick up your stuff while they were still at the hotel.

"I went over there and got your suitcase and brought it here. All your clothes and stuff are in the locker room if you ever want them … on top of your locker. I threw the suitcase out. It was kinda FUBAR … if ya know what I mean.

"Awhile later, Tom called again … he still had this damn box … and it had your name on it … and he wasn't gonna drag it all the way back to the hospital. Didn't tell me about it earlier … on purpose, I think … and so I ran all the way back to the hotel to pick up this little pissy box.

"All the time you were laying here unconscious, it sat on my dresser. When I got the call that you were awake, I left in a hurry to come over here to see you."

Billy reached for the tiny gift box and held it up. "This freakin' little box … I delivered it, man. And it's from Jimmy."

House was still staring at the ceiling. His eyes were dry, but his face was dark and deeply troubled.

"What's wrong?" Billy asked. The last he'd looked, Gregg had been trying to smile …

"Wilson would still be alive with his sanity intact if it hadn't been for me." The words were low and stark with anguish.

"What? What are you talking about? You had nothing to do with what happened."

"No, but he was driving my car. My _old_ car. Old seat belts. Old rusty metal. No air bags. Just a tired old windbag … me! It ran fine, but it was fuckin' _old!"_

Gregg's voice was bleak. His moments of humor had dried up and were now buried in new regret. "I'm a doctor. I could have bought a new car … one with side air bags. Reinforced door panels. But I didn't. So Wilson got his brains bashed because he was driving my 1989 Dodge Dynasty! He gave me hell for hanging onto it once, for not trading it in, but I didn't listen. I ignored him all the time when he tried to talk sense to me. And now he's worse than dead."

House couldn't go on for a moment. Then he looked up at the ceiling again. "Now all that's left is a funny little note in his scratchy handwriting … and a cute little Mister Peanut he probably paid half a week's salary for ... but I don't have Jimmy …"

There was nothing more to be said.

Billy Travis sat by Gregory House's bedside until his grieving friend finally fell asleep again. The new Drenivin medication that had removed his pain, completely forgotten.

Heavy hearted, he got up to leave when the usual bevy of student nurses arrived to check IVs, bandages, Foley, feeding tubes … all the rest of it.

Billy did not speak to them. He was on night shift tonight and he hadn't slept. He thought he probably wouldn't … not now.

One of the young nurses stuck her head out the door of the cubicle and watched Big Bill Travis as he shuffled away down the hall. She thought he looked like he had lost his best friend.

Then, looking back at the fragile figure in the big hospital bed, she figured maybe he had.

One of the others spied the tiny statue on the nightstand.

"Oh … come look at the cute little Mister Peanut!

"Isn't it darling?!"

#

160


	28. Chapter 28

"Whisper of the Wind"

Chapter 28

"Lesson in Lonely"

January, 2025

Whitey:

They had him in the rehab room, the one with the exercise machines and the gym mats and the parallel bars and the hot-paks.

They'd taken him there in a wheelchair. They'd had to tie him in. Jeremy pushed and Shirley supported his head gently to keep it from butting against the chrome handles that rose vertically from the frame. The other three, more heavily padded wheelchairs, were already in use and they'd had to take what was left.

Whitey didn't mind at all. He didn't say anything … but they knew …

The room was warm because most of the coma patients' low metabolism made for funky blood circulation, hence, goosepimples most of the time. Though they couldn't tell you, they were almost always colder than those who worked with them. The temperature this morning was a balmy 85 degrees in the room. Whitey's devoted caregivers were already beginning to feel a little damp around the collar.

They had him flat on his back on one of the mats on the floor. All around them, other coma patients and their caregivers were doing leg and arm exercises; head lifts and hip rotations. Some of those minimally conscious people were able to achieve guttural sounds in their throats and move their eyes and faces. Some could grunt or make small growling sounds once in awhile. Some even managed to flop an arm in some random direction, or smile briefly when encouraged with gentle pats to their cheeks, or silly faces or noises affected by their companions.

Such remarkable things, however, had never been accomplished by Whitey. It was sad. He was a handsome 55-year-old man with clear skin, snowy white hair, high cheekbones and dark eyes and eyebrows.

But there was no spark within. No indication of a break in his comatose state. Not in all these years. Only a nominal rise in respiration when the first of the month came around, and the visit from "Doc" was imminent. That was all.

Whitey was stripped down to his diaper. His head was turned slightly to the right. He stared at the opposite wall with no particular interest. Neither did he show any interest when they exercised his skinny legs … bending the knobby knees while his calfless lower legs were moved up and down, side to side. His feet were long, pale, thin flippers with tendons and ligaments that stood out along his insteps like violin strings. His hipbones stuck out like the infrastructure of a sailing ship, and his ribs formed high ridges that curled above the convex stomach. His shoulder blades, collarbones, elbows and wrists were huge on the emaciated limbs. He no longer had biceps or abs. All had melted away during the extended length of time he had spent in long goodbye.

"The exercises aren't helping him anymore," Jeremy Elton commented sadly. "There's no muscle tone left, and no way to get it back. The only thing we're doing here, Shirl, is putting off the inevitable. There's nothing left of his mind. It would be something of a blessing if he just walked off, theoretically speaking, into the sunset. It would be a comfort if his body could just go to the same place where his mind is …"

Shirley sat back on her heels and looked up to meet the softening gaze of her favorite colleague. "You're putting words to thoughts I've had about this sweet man for years, Jer," she agreed. "His mouth doesn't close anymore, and it's affecting the alignment of his jaw. We could use a jaw strap, but that seems cruel. The arthritis in his hands is progressing steadily too, and I'm not sure if the Prednisone and Serocronamide are working for him … or even if they ever have."

They continued with Whitey's exercises as though their feelings for him had never been uttered. Whitey was a human being, and to them he was deserving of whatever they could possibly do for him. They exercised his limbs and massaged his nonexistent muscles and cared for him as they would care for a small, ill child.

Whitey did not notice.

"Has anyone talked to the Doc lately?" Shirley wondered. "He was pretty upset when he went out of here last month."

"I don't know," Jeremy admitted. "Mr. Travis called his brother after he read the Zai-Zo PING report about the incident with … Doc." Jeremy kept his voice low in case other nurses working with other patients nearby might overhear.

"Yeah?" Shirley's brow creased with interest. "Did he say anything that you know of? It's soon time for Doc's next visit ..."

"All I know is that Doc was pretty upset for awhile. I guess Whitey's tears really shook him up."

"I'm sorry that happened," Shirley murmured. "He wasn't expecting it … and he isn't in the best of health himself."

"You think he'll show up this weekend?"

"He _always_ shows up …"

"Yeah, you're right."

Shirley Appel and Jeremy Elton returned Whitey to his room just before the noon meal.

Whitey had been given a bath. A light sniff of Canoe cologne wafted from the area of his shoulders. Just as though he were a normal man. Jeremy was thoughtful that way.

They dressed him in warm pajamas and a white robe and tucked him gently beneath soft blankets on his bed. He leaned back against his warm, water-filled contour pillow and looked … with an expression of almost longing … across the room and out the north-facing window. His arthritic hands lay unmoving in his lap.

A CD played the works of Chopin in the player on his dresser, and Whitey's face looked as though he were listening intently. Jeremy left the room and went to a supply closet for a fresh box of adult diapers, while Shirley remained behind to hook up feeding tubes and IVs and a light dose of Ambien. Moisten his lips with a cool, wet rag. Maybe he could sleep for a while.

When she finished with that, she turned to the dresser and picked up a comb to run it through Whitey's thick, fine white hair. It never worked out the way she meant it to, she mused. A single renegade strand always fell away again and cascaded back over his forehead.

She smiled at his look of innocence and turned back to the dresser to lower the player's volume a little, and return the comb to its cup.

Behind her, unseen, Whitey blinked with a spastic flutter. He moved his mouth for just an instant, ran the tip of his tongue across his lower lip.

When Jeremy returned with two boxes of diapers in his arms, Shirley stood aside so he could put them away in a drawer.

When everything was just as it needed to be, they dimmed the lights and left quietly to go to the nurses' station and file their reports on the PING.

Whitey listened, dreamily, to Chopin.

In his injured brain, a short-circuited synapse flickered feebly …

There was a landscape.

Lightscape?

Skyskape?

White.

Stretching to infinity. Like looking down on clouds. Interspersed with patches of the lightest, most fragile blue.

Expanding. On and on. Beyond the fringes of comprehension.

Mountains? Seas?

Nothing more substantial than the endless wind. Blowing and gusting, then fading to a whisper.

Whisper of the Wind …

Calling him. Beckoning somehow, but he could make no sense of it.

He could see himself walking … more like floating, maybe … into an endless expanse that reduced his being to a wraith painted in thin water colors on the easel of the sky.

The self that was him, was insubstantial. Transparent as white chiffon. Weightless as pale chimney smoke of a summer morning …

It made him weak. Tired.

Look away.

Close your eyes.

Sleep.

Sleep …

#

164


	29. Chapter 29

"Whisper of the Wind"

Chapter 29

"Something to Remember Him By"

January 2025

Gresham:

We stood motionless, locked into a shy embrace for a long time. Everything external melted away from what we were together in those moments. I could tell Leather was in physical and mental pain. He was wracked with trembling as his mind fought for control of his body, and I knew there was nothing I could do for him except hold on.

I gripped him firmly, just above his middle, hands reaching upward, barely touching his shoulder blades. Even that first day when I had knocked him for a loop in Spider Leg #1, he hadn't seemed this tall. Long and lean and craggy, his head might have been in the clouds, for all I knew. I had to tilt backward at an angle in order to look into his face.

Finally he lowered his head to my shoulder and stood there like a big, clumsy-graceful, loose-limbed scarecrow. He breathed deeply, recovering his composure. His beard bit into the skin of my neck, but I would not flinch. If he needed me to hold him up, balance him on his sound leg, I was up for the task. If he needed to weep, I could sustain that too.

He straightened at last with a heavy sigh. I saw him dig into his jacket pocket for his pills. He shook the bottle twice, perhaps judging the number still left. He took two pills dry and tipped his head back to swallow, a familiar delaying tactic. He did that a lot. He returned the bottle to his pocket, but would not meet my scrutiny. He grasped the handle of the cane from where he'd hooked it over his arm and maneuvered slowly back to the old yellow chair. He lifted his leg onto the stool, closed his eyes and leaned back.

I stood still beside the worktable and watched him. I didn't speak at first. The next words, if any, were up to him, if there was going to be a conversation. I was already regretting the tumble of words that confessed to him how I felt. This was a man who did not suffer fools gladly, and I could almost anticipate his disapproval and disdain at the way I'd blurted out that I loved him.

Christ, Gresham! Why didn't you just tell the man you wanted to screw him right here on the damned work table? What the hell is wrong with you?

After a minute or so he opened one eye and squinted up at me with a snarky, tolerant look on his face.

Ah damn! Here it comes …

"I love you too," he said very softly. He then closed the eye and combed his face of all expression. "You get to me …" The last part was scarcely above a whisper.

I know for certain that my mouth dropped open.

What??

He looked up at me again …both eyes this time … judging my reaction … and smiled briefly. "But it's not what you think."

"Then what??"

"You're a sucker for a sad face … just like he was. You thrive on need. I can give you that in spades! I've already figured that out, and you have too if you think about it."

"I don't know what you mean …"

"Sure you do. I saw it in your face the day you knocked me on my ass. But I don't want to be your 4-H project."

"What's that supposed to mean?

"It means …" He paused a moment, considering. "I'm not gonna earn you brownie points for giving a sad old man a new lease on life. Aint gonna happen. Right now I corner the market on pathetic figures, and I aim to keep it that way. Get it?"

"Leather, you're not a sad old man. You're a royal pain in the ass."

"Exactly!" There was a twinkle stirring in his eye. "I don't need saved. I don't need sympathy, and I don't need somebody to stand off to the side poised to catch me when I fall. If I go on my ass, I'll pick myself up. You're going to be a doctor, dammit! That's not just a stroll in the park. It takes a long time and a lot of sweat and a lot of compromise. Don't blow it! Don't fall in love and get all goo-goo eyed.

"Jesus, Gresham … you're young enough to be my daughter … maybe only a couple years shy of being my granddaughter. Given the age difference, I could get arrested for statutory rape! So we'll never be a 'couple'. Don't even think about it!"

"How do you know I …?" I felt myself getting angry.

"Pffffht!" He snorted with a sarcasm that said I was talking nonsense. He glared at me the same way my Dad used to glare at me when I thought I was conning him out of … or into … something.

"Ahh, you're such a romantic little girl," he scoffed. "I had to deal with one of them on my service once before, and she drove me nuts. But I wasn't about to let myself get trapped that way. Not that I wouldn't have liked to … now and then … but I don't have much left on the credit side anymore except my honor. I'd like to hang onto some of that, maybe …"

"You sound like my Dad. Do you have kids?"

"See? Already you're comparing me with your father. Another reason why the romantic angle would never work. If I'd had kids, I'd probably have drowned 'em at birth! Kids are okay in minimal doses, but I won't put up with their crap."

"Yeah … " I said with chagrin. "I remember! Selfish, huh?"

"You got that right!"

"So why did Dr. Wilson stick around?"

The lights in his eyes changed suddenly to something that spoke of a deep and ongoing sorrow. I regretted bringing it up.

"Dr. Wilson," he finally said, "was a basket case with a Hebrew conscience."

"Huh?"

"He knew when he was needed. He called me an idiot at least once a week. And he filled up all my empty spaces."

"What happened to him? No one will give me a straight answer. Will you?"

"Why do you want to know?"

"Because I was sooo in love with him … all through sixth grade. I carried his picture in my history book. He was beautiful …"

Leather's face softened appreciably. "Yeah, for a sappy cow-eyed moron, he was okay."

"I cried for a week when I heard he was dead. And I cried for you when I thought _you_ were dead. But here you are …"

"For what it's worth, Wilson isn't dead either ..."

"I _knew_ it! But he was hurt, wasn't he? That's where you go every month, isn't it? To see him?"

"You been talking to W. T.??"

"Yeah, but talking to him is like talking to a brick wall. He won't tell me anything."

"He's been a good friend. Guess I can tell him it's okay now."

"So what happened to Dr. Wilson?"

Leather pushed himself out of the yellow chair and straightened in slow increments. He planted the cane's rubber tip near the toe of his right shoe and switched the subject like a water tap going from hot to cold.

"We didn't get much work done around here today," he murmured, looking around. He stood in the middle of the floor propped up with the cane, and I figured he'd decided he'd talked enough about things that made him uncomfortable.

"Leather? Dr. House?" I was trying not to be solicitous, but I knew I was.

He turned slowly and affixed me with a sad, cold stare. "Not anymore today," he finally said. "I'll get with W. T. and see when it'd be best to fill you in. I gotta go, Gresham. I'll see you tomorrow."

He slung his backpack onto his shoulder. Slowly he picked his way to the other side of the room, turned down the dehumidifier and pushed the button for the elevator. The rumble of its mechanism echoed through the spider banks and the door opened before him.

He stepped in, and when the doors closed over him, he was looking at me with sad, speculative eyes. Those eyes seemed a direct pipeline to his aching heart.

I stood still and waited for the elevator to come back down again. I wondered, not for the first time, where in hell things could possibly go from here …

#

169


	30. Chapter 30

"Whisper of the Wind"

Chapter 30

"Anthem for Whitey"

February 2025

Leather:

I noticed from the moment I went into his room that his body seemed rigid. More so than he had ever seemed since the accident. Immediately I rounded up Shirley Appel and Jeremy Elton and asked them about it. They waited while I propped my freshly sterilized cane near the foot of his bed, then sat and took both sides of his face gently between my palms. His eyes were different this morning. Glazed. A little nervous … like someone about to go into a panic. It gave me a good case of goose pimples.

I knew I was a lot more disturbed than he was. Naturally!

This was not something that usually happened within my own areas of expertise as a doctor, but I recognized physical symptoms of gradual changes caused by earlier head trauma. It doesn't matter how soon … or how long … after the actual trauma. I was afraid that what I was seeing in my friend was not good.

I looked up from him and searched their faces. But Shirley and Jeremy were puzzled also. They saw him every day. Touched what remained of his barren life with gentle intimacy. They massaged his skin, tousled his fine white hair and exercised his flaccid muscles. They gave him warm sponge baths and stuck their tongues out at him in jest. They loved him. They changed his diapers.

They were always at his side when Mountain View's regular staff doctors examined him on a regular basis. Had they seen any changes in him recently? Both considered the question momentarily, and agreed that … no. There had been no sudden changes. Other than the regular rise in respiration every month when my visits were imminent. Those instances, of course, had given rise to hope when they first started occurring. But then it became the norm, and anything we might have speculated as far as a difference in his consciousness level went away again.

I kept searching his eyes as I sat beside him, my index fingers touching his prominent cheekbones. There was no recognition in their dark depths, but his pupils were chaotic with tiny movements, and I thought: "Opsoclonus". Rapid and involuntary irregular eye movements that I'd once heard called "Dancing Eyes". Ironic! That term would have fit Wilson so much better back when he was silently laughing at me inside his own head …

In another minute he calmed again. The emptiness of his features dropped back across his face. Muscular tightness and the tiny eye spasms gradually diminished. Diagnostically speaking, I dismissed it as having been a mini-seizure such as I hadn't witnessed before. They'd told me he still suffered from those once in awhile.

I moved the fingers of my right hand downward and onto his carotid pulse. Fifty eight. Within the acceptable range for his condition. His temperature felt pretty normal too … except for his hands. They were always a little puffy about the knuckles, the skin a little too shiny and a little too warm to suit me. For the five-hundredth time, I wondered if he felt pain in his hands in the same manner that I felt pain in my leg.

Actually, that question in itself was a little unfair of me … comparing his pain to mine. I would be extremely upset if I'd known that it was so, and he did feel that constant discomfort. But both Shirley and Jeremy said periodic pain monitoring on a regular basis showed nothing on Whitey's neurological scans. I had no reason to doubt them.

I thanked both of them for standing by patiently while I obsessed over his condition. When they left to give us some privacy, I marveled somewhat at my ongoing ability to remember both their names. Those two people broke all my previously held contempt rules for human beings. They are not overrated. They have been a Godsend in Whitey's otherwise ghostly existence. They have never treated him like a cipher, or an empty shell, but rather like a very timid man with paralysis.

I have often gone in there and found them carrying on a conversation with him as though they were bosom buddies who had known each other all their lives. Their kindnesses have played strange, delightful games with my foolish head … and I have never found a proper way or a proper time to thank them on his behalf. And mine. I hope they understand in some small way that all these cool things swirl about constantly in my inarticulate brain.

I didn't get down from Whitey's bed and go over to my own chair by the window. Not right away. Whit had had that chair with its plump ottoman, put there, he said, because of the condition of my leg. The way he'd said it at the time didn't raise my hackles or make me think he was patronizing me. He acknowledged without frills or sympathy that I was a cripple, and he'd had the chair brought in as an attempt to make me comfortable. He knew how I felt about Whitey. Instinct, I guess … or else he'd been talking to his kid brother. Didn't matter. I'd told him "thanks". He said "you're welcome" … and that was the end of it.

Now, I wanted to see what it would be like to just talk to Whitey … Wilson … again … as I had done before he was hurt. But with a little more gentleness. A little more respect. Something. The way I should have done it a long time ago, but just couldn't be bothered to control my runaway tongue …

I tossed the cushion to the bottom of the bed and pulled myself backward to sit next to him. We were side-by-side against that body pillow with the warm water undulating through it. It felt wonderful against my back muscles and my hip muscles … all the places in my fucked-up body that had to do double duty to make up for what the leg couldn't manage. I slid my left arm behind him and around his back and pulled his head gently onto my shoulder.

If Shirley and Jeremy could engage him in conversation, I could too.

We mulled over my job at the university first … and my feelings that the damn job probably existed in the first place because somebody (most certainly Whit) had clued the Dean about why I needed the change of scenery … and all that shit.

I also told him I had a feeling that Billy and Whit Travis and Shirley and Jeremy, weren't the only four people on Earth … now five, if you included that damn kid I had working for me … that knew I was still alive and he … Wilson … was also alive … and all of them were perfectly willing to go along with the pretense … just a feeling …

And I told him about Gresham, the wiley brat medical student with the steel-trap mind, who had figured out the subterfuge of my situation inside of three months, and now worked for me doing literary research in the place called "The Spider Banks" … and no, I wasn't exactly a doctor anymore … more like somebody who gave them some off-the-wall diagnostics once in awhile that were usually spot-on, as usual … and I served as student adviser and advocate, and …

Deep breath. I could imagine him inside my head.

_You're_ _what?_ _An advisor and an advocate?? House … you hate kids!_

"Yeah, Wilson. I know. I hate everybody! So shoot me. I also hate people who interrupt me when I'm talking!"

Sorry …

"It's okay. You don't interrupt me all that much anymore."

Oh. Oh yeah. No I don't, do I?

I told him about Billy Travis.

"I call him "W. T." now. He followed me to Ann Arbor all the way from New Jersey when he told me he and his brother own this place … and I called Whit to have you admitted here. This is a hell of a lot better than that last freakin' hospice where Tom had you hidden away.

"By the way, Tom's in California now, you know. I think he ran away from you because he can't accept the loss of another brother.

"That … and he thought we were bangin' each other. Can you believe it?

"Anyhow, Billy's never come to visit you. He says he can't. He had a nervous breakdown after the accident. Had to spend a week or so in seclusion. When they told him you and I were dead, he went to pieces. He's okay now … fortunately.

"It was Billy who finally brought me your "Mister Peanut" birthday present, and the silly note you wrote to go with it. It got shuffled all over the place until he finally gave it to me in the hospital. Oh yeah … really. It's in my office … over in the teaching hospital. On my desk. By the way … thanks.

"I was in the hospital a long time. Took me two months in physical therapy just to regain use of my arm. The accident wrecked my kidneys and liver and spleen, and I had to have a transplant, finally. I lost my spleen. The leg is a whole 'nother story. They bugged me and bugged me to give it up an' let 'em amputate …

"But you knew I couldn't do it, right? Just couldn't. They would have had to take it at the hip. No way in hell I could wear a prosthesis! Cut it _all _off … like carving a turkey. All the shit that was wrong with me … my imminent 'death' was very believable …

"Whit Travis and his band of merry men finally rigged up this amazing leg brace …

"It took almost two years, Wilson … but they used bone grafts, and skin that they transplanted off my skinny ass. After the accident, when I came out of the coma, Norm Lyons and his team actually came up with some original neurological and orthopedic techniques. Nobody wanted to put up with my temper tantrums. Afterward, they let me use crutches … but it was never right. The leg was so weak I couldn't hold my foot off the floor. That caused all kinds of problems. Then I came here … and Whit and his little green men took over … and did the brace …

"Dammit Jimmy … I need you to nag and yell at me like always …"

And this seems to bother you … why? 'Cause I can't.

"Don't interrupt!! Who's talking here?"

Sorry …but you started it! I don't want to go, House, but one of these days I'll have to leave you …

That last response shut me up, and the "conversation" was over. He was "Whitey" again, and he didn't interrupt further. He sat still with his fluffy white head resting on my shoulder. I can never get used to how white his hair is now …

… and when I finally opened my eyes it was 5:00 p.m. Jeremy and Shirley were coming back for evening rounds.

I slid off the bed and moved over to the little piano so they could work.

I ran my fingers over the keys and started to play "Softly and Tenderly", one of Wilson's favorites. Funny. Him being Jewish, and he has a thing for Christian hymns. Pretty soon we were all humming it.

All along the corridors on Jimmy's floor, doors were opening in every patient room within hearing distance. I let my fingers go a little heavier on the keys when I saw Jeremy smiling from the doorway and encouraging me to give it a little more volume.

"Come home, come home …

Ye, who are weary, come home;

Earnestly, tenderly Jesus is calling;

Calling, 'O sinner, come home!'"

Two verses and the chorus. I played it through and leaned back. The misery in my leg was accelerating with each ounce of pressure on the sustain pedal. It had been fairly quiet all day, and now it was galling me.

Across the room, Shirley and Jeremy were still smiling … and from the rooms down the hallway I could hear faint, scattered applause.

For some reason I was embarrassed.

And in more pain than I wanted to admit.

I got up from the bench and staggered across for the damn cane. I grasped it tightly and began to straighten. I needed to get down the hallway to a distant men's room to moan out loud if I had to, and take some more of those damned meds.

Inadvertently I looked into Whitey's face.

His features were blank as always. But his eyes seemed to meet mine softly. His bottom lids were shining with moisture … and two phantom lines of tears were tracking down across his cheeks. It must have been a trick of the light …

Wilson … you're killing me by inches!

#

173


	31. Chapter 31

"Whisper of the Wind"

Chapter 31

"Too Old to Cut the Mustard"

December 2008 to

March 2009 …

Gregory House:

Panicking, I looked around myself with justifiable anger. Movement of my body was restricted, but the damned screaming had finally stopped.

_Jesus Christ! Can't somebody shut that sonnovabitch up?_

I flailed my head from side to side. A dim distraction. A desperation. Some kind of last-ditch muscle stretching that would focus the pain somewhere else, pass for physical movement and give the illusion that I was still alive.

I couldn't run away, but I couldn't lie still much longer without going out of my mind. The pain in my body was a wild animal, and it was starving … desperate for something upon which to feed. And I was knuckling under to the assault …

I needed desperately to move to a different position before my bones exploded … or have someone else move me before I erupted with an entire crop of pressure ulcers on my ass. The skin of my shoulders and back stung like they were being attacked by a swarm of bees the size of New Jersey. But even that fiery pain ran a distant second to the agony of the flamethrowers that were burning up my entire right leg …

I jammed my head backward this time, and down, digging into the depths of the pillow.

Make it stop! Please god … make it sto-o-p-p…

I looked around, panicky and beseeching. My mouth ratcheted open, and desperate sounds came out of it: shrill sounds, far beyond my control. I could feel hot tears mixed with strong, rancid perspiration. Feral terror … the fear that I was drowning, going under. I was buried alive in fiery depths of volcanic lava and suffocating … two of my life's worst primal fears. I was surely dying.

I realized, as my consciousness began to fade into dim, muddy redness, the screams I had been hearing …

They were mine!

Lisa Cuddy was in the chair at my side. Eric Foreman and Chris Taub stood by the foot of the bed. All were watching me very closely.

I glared at them. "What're you doing? Making bets on how long before I ratchet out of this bed and land on the floor?" My entire body was prickled and itching, and I could do nothing to relieve it. I scritched my shoulders into the sheet, but that sent the wolves into my busted arm and pulled at the stitches in my gut. "Ow! Fuck!"

Foreman and Taub scowled at me with exasperated expressions, but I saw that Cuddy was wearing her patented, tight-lipped, cow-eyed look that I had always called her "poor-baby sympathy" face.

When they didn't answer me immediately, I screamed at them. "WHAT?? HELP ME! PLEASE!"

Cuddy was on my left side, the human side, not the "glued-together-with-spit-and-baling-wire " side. Her warm palm was gently encircling my left forearm, one of the few patches of skin that didn't display a forest of IVs and purple bruises left over from insertion and removal of tubes and monitors.

"House," she said softly, and I thought she was going to cry, "your pain spiked and we had to put you under for a while. I'm sorry, House … so sorry you had to go through that. We're taking measures to be sure it won't happen again …"

"What measures?" I felt light headed, half nauseous and floating. I still itched, but the horrendous pain was finally beginning to lift. I looked down toward my leg, relieved to see that it was still attached to the pulley arrangement ... or whatever-the-hell all that plastic-and-Velcro scaffolding was called …

"We gave you fentanyl, diazepam. Someone will be here shortly to rub your back and relieve some of the irritation. We'll monitor you closely to check your ongoing cardiopulmonary status and level of consciousness. If you feel nauseated, let someone know right away."

I nodded, a small dip of my chin. My head felt like a tin can with ball bearings rolling around in it. I was slack-jawed with weakness. I felt her fingers tighten on my arm.

"House … your leg is bad. Won't you please reconsider amputation? Norm and his team are very good, but they can't perform miracles. The tissue around your scar is breaking down. You need to let go before an infection eventually kills you …"

I looked down to where Taub and Foreman were standing. Foreman had that "deer-in-the-headlights" look in his huge black eyes. Taub's face was infinitely solemn, and I thought: _Oh fuck!_ The idiots were ganging up on me again … as if all those puppy dog expressions could somehow change my mind.

"If my leg goes south, I go with it. Tell Norm Lyons he had better figure out some original miracles, or I'll come back from the dead and haunt his hairy ass for the rest of his miserable life! He's a piss-poor doctor as it is … and you can also tell him I said so.

"Now will you all get the hell out of here and send in the babe with the balm? I'm itching my ass off!"

I closed my eyes and pretended they weren't there. When I opened them after a prolonged interval of obvious dismissal, Cuddy was indeed gone. The Foreman-Taub duo had been replaced by a small blonde angel in Mickey Mouse scrubs with a tube of body lotion in her hand. She was smiling at me in a way that I chose to call "seductive", and my squinted eyeballs painted a halo around her perfect little head.

Come to Papa!

When I woke up from a blissful sleep a few hours later, everyone was gone. My angel had winged her way back to heaven.

In her place was an older-model, rotund, grey-haired nurse in a white uniform and nurse's cap, for chrissake! She sat quietly in a visitor's chair at the foot of my bed. Her eyes shifted periodically from the magazine in her lap to the monitors lined against the wall. I remembered stories my old man used to tell about his own father's experiences with the stiffly starched nurses of World War II. I hoped to hell I hadn't entered a time warp.

I pretended Clara Barton wasn't there.

I didn't go back to sleep again. The pain in my leg was held at bay by all the meds that made me feel like I was flitting among the clouds … and they had probably used the new stuff too. I couldn't remember what it was called.

But the broken arm wasn't having any. Those bones were in the process of knitting, but there were many small breaks along its length, and they weren't happy about it. I sent my thoughts adrift … outward to other places, other times. I thought about my friend Wilson for a moment, and felt tears threatening. So I had to think about something else. Fast!

I was hungry and too damn sick to eat. I couldn't picture myself being fed by Clara or her ilk anyway … so I pretended to stay asleep. She could probably tell from my monitors that I was a lying, faking asshole … nothing new …

There were a couple more months of crap just like that. I floated along like a hot air balloon … buffeted by updrafts and slammed by storm clouds and winds …

Christmas was coming soon, and here I was … still in the hospital.

Been there, done that!

Got the tee shirt, the sweatshirt, the hat and the towel!

Billy Travis, Lisa Cuddy, the "old" fellows and the "new" fellows spent Christmas Eve having luncheon with me, trying to keep my spirits up. My upper body was free of plaster at last, and I could actually look around at my surroundings. They cranked up my bed and the nurses propped me up on a mountain of pillows. We caught up with each other a little and I made a lot of "cripple" jokes and they helped me with my food.

James Wilson's name came up only once, but the mention of him by Kuttner shut down the festivities like the slam of a bank vault. After that the conversation turned awkward, and one by one, they found excuses to leave.

None of them knew he was still alive.

Tom Wilson had finally got the guts to come to me earlier and confide to me where Jimmy was, and that he, Tom, and his family were leaving … moving to California. I managed to wait until he left and I was alone before I broke down. Later I told the nurses it was from the pain and frustration …

Only Billy and Lisa remained at my side while Christmas Eve slowly ground to a close. Lisa stayed another half hour after most of the others had departed. She kissed me on the forehead, then gathered her coat and left also.

Then there was only Billy.

He had been ill. He had lost weight, and he finally admitted to me that when he heard about the accident, he had gone to pieces. He'd spent time alone, sequestered in private until his grief had run its course and he was ready to deal with life again. He said he knew I might need to have him around for "slave duty", and that he was feeling much better after being told I was still alive and getting better.

Billy asked one of the night nurses to bring us a carafe of coffee and maybe some donuts. We would pretend we were a couple of street cops taking a break at "Drunkin' Donuts".

I was pretty much out of the harness that held my arm in place. The IVs were at a minimum; most of them feeds to the leg now. My arm was still bandaged and supported by a sling. It was scarred and pinched and screaming with shades of fiery pink. Thanks to rehab, I had regained partial use of it. I could even eat my donuts by myself … almost. And I could hold the big coffee cup in my left hand. It was a small victory, but still a victory.

That was the night Billy told me that his Brother in Michigan operated this big nursing home-hospice. Every patient was treated with kindness by very special people, and nobody was left to sit in the dark and waste away from loneliness or neglect. He told me about the beautiful old converted mansion that stood in the middle of a wilderness, backed up against a series of rolling hills, far from noise and traffic and hubbub.

Billy made no suggestions to me that night. He offered no hints, did not attempt to sway me in any way. But he left my cell phone and a picture of the place on the front of a small brochure, and a business card with his brother's name on it, and the phone number. I read everything thoroughly, memorized the phone number, and then wrapped it all in a paper napkin and tossed it in the waste can.

The following day I called Whitney Travis on my cell phone … and arrangements were made on the spot. Wilson would have a home with them as soon as they could possibly arrange it.

After that I was determined to get better … get out of that fucking hospital and walk again on the leg I was born with. Mechanical wheelchair first, then a walker, then crutches, then cane. I didn't much care. I wrote it in stone with my life's blood!

I harangued Norm Lyons about skin grafts and bone grafts and plastic replacement parts until I'm sure he could have wrung my blathering neck. But he got his team together that next week, and they brainstormed.

The only time Norm's homely, smirking, little fat face lit up with anything close to a grin, was the day I suggested they take skin grafts from my ass cheeks. They could be used in the areas where my surgical scar and surrounding flesh had been pulled away from the bone. He was absolutely ecstatic when he contemplated my total agony during times when I couldn't sit down … couldn't stand up … when the skin of my ass began to fill in again and start to itch … and my leg would itch too … and if I scratched, I would risk scratching the newly transplanted layers right off with it …

But we finally had an impasse, and Norm and his team got to work. The first surgery took place, I noted with chagrin, on February 28th … Wilson's 40th birthday.

Fuck!

There were two surgeries. Each one reduced the chance for massive infection and added to the possibility of saving the leg. They also added to the chances for getting me the hell out of there. I didn't tell anyone I was figuratively holding my breath each time they rolled me toward the O. R.

The pain was godawful. There were times I was reduced to a blubbering idiot; eyes squeezed shut, fists and teeth clenched, every inch of my body on fire with the effort of not crying out like a caged lion. Every doctor who tried to treat me got called everything but a gentleman. I was not … _not_ … in control. Fortunately they knew that, and I was handled gently and with expediency.

After the surgeries … sometime at the beginning of the year … I had long ago lost track of time as the days piled on one another … I got to view what was left of my leg. Without casts, without traction, heavy bandages, or IV ports draining and swollen … just an ugly, naked and brutally disfigured, partially reconstructed human leg, whose future was very "iffy".

The thigh looked like a smacked baby's ass. Puffy … in varying shades of purple, red, pearl-pink and pearl-white, and hard as a rock around the area of the old surgical scar. The only hair still present came from a few patches crisscrossing the femur, where skin grafts from my butt thrived with immodest determination. It was offputting and ugly, even to me, who had to get used to living with it.

Not that I wasn't grateful. Oh Christ! I was. But I couldn't help thinking about what use it was going to be in the long run. As it was now, there was no flexibility at the knee. It bent some, but it was painful and I had no control. There was no rotation at the ankle. I could barely wiggle my toes.

Billy gave me royal hell. As always, he was there, handing me a hard time, pointing out the foolishness of my fears as I viewed the poor dead-looking thing with appalled distaste.

"Gregg, look at you! You're _wiggling your toes!_ Don't you get it? Your surgeries were way up _there_ … damn near all the way to your sitting parts. Your toes are way down _there_ at the bottom. And your toes are _moving!_ It looks pretty much to me like there's still some kind of electrical connection between your asshole and your foot! Maybe we can get some batteries … or a long extension cord … plug it in and get it working a little better …"

I looked at him dumbly for a second, then laughed out loud. It was the first time I had laughed since I could remember. It was liberating in a way I could scarcely define.

Billy laughed with me. There were no sentimental tears in our eyes. Just jubilation.

I – WILL - WALK!

The following day he came back to my room and slid into the chair by my bed. "Hey! Boss!"

I was watching the Outdoor Channel. Some idiot explaining how to set up a duck blind.

"Whaddaya want now, Billy?"

"Cuddy says you can go home tomorrow … if you want …"

I clicked off the TV and threw down the remote.

"Seriously?"

"Seriously."

"What's the catch?" I wasn't about to get all delirious about it before I knew the raft of demands that were bound to come along with it.

"Nurses," he said. He had known I would be suspicious. "Round the clock. Physical therapist, once a day. And me … all the time. Weekly evaluation by Norm Lyons or one of his staff. Nutritionist … get you on a diet to build up your strength. 'Take it or leave it,' she said."

I wondered if I would get three Clara Bartons or three Blonde Angels … but I didn't voice it. Knowing Cuddy, it would be the former rather than the latter.

I nodded. Noncommittal. "Sounds okay to me …"

"'_Sounds okay??' Is that all you've got to say?"_

"Jeez Louise!" I yelled back at him. "I think I've died and gone to hog heaven!" My pop culture enthusiasm was a little outdated … but who cared, right?

Billy and I high-fived, but very gently because the old right hand was still kinda weak and worthless.

When the celebration calmed down, I thought about what this would mean.

I turned to Billy very seriously.

"I need to go to Wilson, you know …"

He nodded.

"I know, Gregg …"

I have a one-track mind about that …

#

181


	32. Chapter 32

"Whisper of the Wind"

Chapter 32

"Vistas"

February 2025

Leather's place:

It was the Saturday after he'd been with Whitey. It was about a week after he'd played "Softly and Tenderly" on the piano.

Last Saturday was the day when he thought his leg was going to explode. He'd gone over to grab his cane from beside Whitey's bed so he could get out of there and hide in the men's room down the hall. Take a couple of pills and press his face against the cold porcelain wall to try to keep from screaming.

But a fleeting glance at Whitey's face halted the pain in its tracks, electrifying him with the sad-puppy look that had devastated his lonely soul all those years. His heart skipped a beat at the momentary spark in those dark eyes, and the imaginary … ? … trails of moisture on the smooth cheeks …

Was it the hymn that had triggered the reaction?

If so … how?

Or was it the wistful sadness he used to see in Wilson's eyes when Wilson knew his best friend's leg pain was spiking again?

If so … how? Had the injury sent Wilson's electrical brain impulses along a different pathway? No. Impossible.

Now, a week had passed.

Leather sat on the old sofa, his narrow butt shoved into the corner between the arm and the backrest. He was shoeless, feet clad only in soft rag socks, legs propped on one of the plump pillows. He wore one of his logo tee shirts, this one red, straight out of the package from L. L. Bean. But his legs and rump were clad in his most comfy pair of old grey sweatpants. He had combed his hair and even trimmed the haystack he called a beard. His cane lay near his left hand and the remote close at his right. The TV was on the cartoon channel, on mute, as he waited for the other two to arrive …

Earlier this morning, he'd been forced to wash a week's worth of dirty dishes if he expected to have enough counter space to put anything else. Groceries had been delivered from the market, and waited on the cabinet and in the fridger … in case Billy felt like cooking.

He was damned if he would try to stand on his feet anymore today, even to impress the Gresham kid. In fact, she could help Billy cook lunch. He would find a way to humiliate her into doing it.

The embrace they'd shared before was pushed to the back of his mind and overridden by his preoccupation with Whitey's tears. Still, he hadn't forgotten the soft sensation of Gresham's skin on his face or the fragrance of her straw-colored hair. It had been a pleasant distraction, but he could not picture himself as the object of her fascination. It was against all he stood for to imagine them together in an intimate setting. It was a nice fantasy, but an impossible dream …

Gresham had never seen his unclad body. He vowed she never would! She could not be allowed to realize how truly grotesque it had become over the years … or find out that his time on Earth was limited. She was smart as hell … but not that smart!

His feelings were ever ambivalent. He refused to be the object of romantic fantasies from this fresh-faced little girl who had probably never experienced an actual love affair in her whole life.

Something in his damaged soul still longed sometimes for the intimate companionship that tugs at the heart of every man. Every woman. He'd had such a thing twice before in his lifetime … within his grasp and there for the taking. But his suspicious mind had turned away both times; afraid of eliciting the pity he couldn't stand, or unconditional love that was far beyond his ken to reciprocate. He couldn't allow himself to be responsible for ruining the lives of anyone he cared for, but had no words to explain or acknowledge.

Everything but his genius for medicine had defined his life with unparalleled periods of sorrow.

Now here he was … on the cusp of damaging someone else …

They arrived together just before noon.

Leather called from the couch: "Use your key! I'm not about to get up." Let those with two healthy legs rescue him from having to move!

Billy was carrying one of the biggest pizzas Leather had ever seen. Smells to die for. Gresham lugged a twelve-pack of Silver Bullets.

He had no more time to be mired in old regrets. Soon there would be new ones.

The two of them were laughing together, chattering about the thousands of old volumes in the research library, and the tall stacks that seemed to rise to the vanishing point at the top of the world.

Leather made a resigned face when he saw that there would be no cooking involved in their lunch. But that was okay … the food in the kitchen would keep. He pulled himself to a straighter position on the couch, making room.

Billy set the big box down on the coffee table and opened it with a flourish. Gresham, in the meantime, took the beer to the kitchen and settled all but three of them in the fridger.

Leather watched her regretfully from beneath lowered lashes, and leaned toward Travis.

"Did you bring it?" He inquired under his breath.

Billy removed his jacket and tossed it across the back of the couch and then plopped down. From his shirt pocket he extracted a small, battered metal case with the cigarette lighter configuration and set it down beside the pizza box. "Yup … you sure you want to do this, Boss?"

Leather nodded briefly as Gresham came in from the kitchen with a stack of paper plates, a roll of paper towels and three cans of beer. "This stuff was out there," she said. So I brought 'em along to save on dishes."

She set everything on the coffee table also. There wasn't much room left.

They munched on the pizza, pretty much in silence, while Gresham's eyes roamed about the room in open appraisal. At the same time, Leather's gaze followed hers in turn as she looked over his furnishings and scant personal items.

I like the way this is set up, Leather," she finally said. "It says a lot about you."

He frowned, ready to bristle. A chunk of pizza paused just as he was about to pop it into his mouth. He glared at her. _Nobody_ was allowed to critique his personal choices or his possessions. "Like what?" He challenged.

Gresham grinned like the Cheshire cat, unintimidated. She would have bet money that he would challenge her. "Well … for instance: most of the furniture is grouped toward the middle of the room instead of the sides. Easy access. Your bookcases are against the walls and out of the way, but easily accessible too.

"I love the baby grand piano. It's beautiful. You have it turned so it faces the middle of the room, and its bench is easy to slide onto. There's a floor lamp out of the way on the other side. Your table lamps are easy to reach and you have no sharp corners on the end tables.

"Also, I notice that you don't have throw rugs in here. The doorways are wide, your kitchen is spacious … I like that butcher-block table in the center. Almost everything in this place is convenient, and what isn't, I see you have a grabber for the unreachables. There's nothing cluttering up the space that you could trip over. Nothing that can put you in danger of getting hurt. It's very 'user friendly'.

"Everything tells me you've used a wheelchair in here, and probably crutches too. It's homey and comfortable and clean … and it looks a lot like my parents' home. My mom is in a wheelchair all the time now. That's how I knew."

She ended with a questioning tone, almost as though expecting a rebuke for making an uncannily accurate assessment.

Across from her on the couch, Billy Travis' dark eyes were wide. Leather's mouth was still half open with a lump of pizza between thumb and forefinger, frozen in place. "You surprise me," he grumped. "You came pretty close. Except that I don't do wheelchairs or crutches. Period. Not anymore."

"Whatever you say," she answered calmly. She had seen the crutches stowed in the pantry in the kitchen when putting away the extra paper plates. She hoped he got a lie blister. _THIS _big!

The pizza finally disappeared … most of it, anyway. They each drank a beer and were

starting on the second. The big box had been taken into the kitchen, along with the empty cans, and trashed. It was quiet in the room.

Leather shifted restlessly on the couch again, and Billy, noticing his discomfort, moved from the couch to the floor so his friend could prop up his leg. Then it got quiet again.

Gresham's attention drifted back and forth from one man to the other, not sure what was going to happen … but certain that something was!

Leather picked up the remote and unmuted the TV, switched it over to the auxiliary channel. The two men exchanged a brief poignant glance and Billy picked up the small metal box, holding it lightly in his hand, looking at it nervously for a moment.

Leather sighed, just loud enough that it brought Gresham's attention all the way around to settle on his face. "You asked me about Dr. Wilson," he said. "But what happened isn't an easy story to tell … for W. T. _or_ me. Understand?"

Gresham frowned. "I'm not sure …"

"Well, after you see this, you will. And it's very important that what you see here never be mentioned to anyone. Ever. For one thing, these images were taken with a Zai-Zo … and the _year_ it was taken … was 2008."

Gresham frowned, and they could almost hear the whir of her mental machinery, turning and turning as it did the math. "But … Zai-Zos weren't even developed for another ten years … I really _don't_ understand!"

"Another great conspiracy theory … all shot to hell!" Leather growled. "The technology was, shall we say: "borrowed" … but that's another story, and has nothing to do with this one. Are you ready?"

"I guess …"

Billy Travis turned the metal box in his hand and slowly slid the cover backward. Tiny lights criss-crossed the front of it. He aimed it at the TV, then lowered it back to the coffee table. Across from them, the television sprang to life. The picture it presented showed an expanse of sky, distant mountains and a convergence of concrete highways surrounded by a panorama of cultivated land. The focus moved in and out from blurry to solid. Numbers and letters scrolled across the bottom of the screen, then disappeared again. They looked like serial numbers and dates.

Gresham squinted as the camera, or whatever it was, bounced around throwing the scan off for a moment, then twisted back the other way, and what she saw for a split second was the unmistakable wide green hood of a big John Deere tractor, the place where the "cameraman" was sitting. Then it leveled and steadied.

The image followed along a broad green landscape with rows of tiny new cornstalks and neatly plowed fields as far as the eye could see. The picture scanned quickly to the left and everything was momentarily blurred. Then its tracking turned sharply upward and finally zoomed in with uncanny detail on a small, single-engine airplane flying high in the sky at a great distance. The focus zoomed closer and closer, finally revealing an astounding closeup of a man and woman, enjoying a sunny day and a sky full of clouds.

The instrument was a Zai-Zo all right, no doubt about it. The man and woman looked like they were no further away than just across the room. The focus was that acute.

"Do you remember, Gresham, when we spoke in my office, and I told you there was a witness to what happened to Dr. Wilson and Dr. House?"

She nodded. "Yeah … sort of … but I didn't think much more about it. I guess I forgot."

"Just as well," Billy said. "It probably kept you out of trouble. There would be hell to pay if the wrong people found out about this scan …"

"What? Why?"

"Hush, Gresham!" Leather said, hands trembling. "This is the answer to all your damn questions."

There was no sound, only a picture. But the image was sharp and delineated and very clear. And occasionally shaky! Whoever held the camera … the Zai-Zo … was not familiar with it.

Flying ahead of fleecy clouds in an azure sky, the small plane's shimmering fuselage reflected sunbeams like a diamond bauble. It seemed to hang motionless except for the buffeting of the currents that buoyed it, a graceful bird on iridescent wings, making it look like a dragonfly hovering gracefully in the air.

Leather, Travis and Gresham watched, mesmerized, as the little plane grew larger on the horizon.

Then, sudden abrupt movements from the cockpit drew the focus inward to zoom closer on the two faces behind the windscreen. The man and woman were not smiling now. The man's hands were grasping at the controls, a scowl on his face, his mouth working soundlessly, eyes riveted on the panel readouts. The woman was wide-eyed and open-mouthed. Near panic. Then her hands were flailing in the air. You didn't have to hear to know she was screaming. She whirled about in her seat, fingers scrabbling for purchase, hands descending to the door handle. Where did she think she could go?

The plane was listing sharply to the right as the Zai-Zo fixed its focus to the movement. The right wing dipped and began to bank against the wind, fighting the slipstream, hunkering down and beginning to keel over. It picked up speed as it lost altitude. Something was horribly wrong, and suddenly the plane was turning belly-up. Its landing gear jutted grotesquely skyward, its passengers hanging like laundry on a clothesline, only their seatbelts holding them in place, both faces frozen in horror.

Gresham hitched an alarmed breath, eyes glued to the screen in horrified fascination. Leather's full attention was on the floor beyond the coffee table, memories too painful to watch. Billy's attention was full on Leather. His palm lay gently near Leather's sock-clad foot.

On the highway below, drivers sped on, oblivious to the drama unfolding above them.

Leather and Billy huddled silently. Both had seen this before and were not anxious to see it again. Both were reminded of traffic passing the scene of any serious accident: strewn wreckage at the side of the road, steam rising from punctured radiators. Passing drivers couldn't look away. Slowing down as they drove on through, not wanting to, but straining to catch a glimpse of carnage. Human nature.

The gasoline tanker hove into view now, laboring up the onramp's incline, bearing left with turn signals flashing as it began to blend into the flow of traffic. In the passing lane, paralleling the big rig's driver's side, a white Escalade, a Ford Escape and a rollback truck transporting a Chevy van, put the pedal to the metal to outdistance the rig and burn up the highway between there and the city.

The plane screamed in low, heading straight for the overpass. It hit the rig just behind

the seam that connected the bulkhead to the shiny length of stainless steel trailer. The plane's engine tore loose from its mounts as its fuel line ruptured on a nearly full tank.

Sparks from the collision ignited the volatile cargo in the Peterbilt's huge fuel cell, and everything within a hundred-yard radius exploded in a blinding flash. The Cessna, the Peterbilt, the Cadillac and the rollback went up like Vesuvius on the day it buried Pompeii. The little Escape leapt into the air and came down in flames on top of a Volkswagen beetle all the way across three lanes of traffic.

Vehicles were on the highway and in the air one moment … and then they were not. They were particles of fused metal that rained down on the highway and on other traffic that had managed to avoid the initial blast. Cars went out of control and hit the abutment and the roadway and each other. One of them went over the abutment and landed; nose first, on the highway below.

The firestorm picked up pieces of roadbed, chunks of the abutment and large sections of metal and tossed them like Roman candles in all directions. The plane's propeller hit the abutment and tore through it, spinning brokenly onto the highway below, landing hard and careening against the driver's door of an older-model Dodge that was unlucky enough to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. A Chevy Corvette accelerated through the resulting firestorm and wobbled out the other end like the space shuttle blasting off, somehow emerging from the conflagration unscathed. Its driver put the petal to the metal in a blast of adrenaline, and never looked back.

All around, fragments of crumpled airplane wing, burning tires, and the entire immense front bumper of the Peterbilt landed on the sides of the road and along the shoulders. One huge truck tire, still burning, rolled alone down the middle of the highway, finally toppling over onto the median. Burned-out car parts, dry grasses and highway debris shot flames upward and then slowly died, smoldering, for a quarter mile in both directions.

Down in the underpass, cars were careening in all directions, colliding with one another, their drivers unable to see anything ahead except sudden swirls of dark smoke and bright stabs of brake lights. Most of them were too late to stop, and a chain reaction collision resulted. The unfortunate car at the head of it all was assaulted hard from both directions, ending up sandwiched between the abutment and other vehicles that had plowed into it from the other side, t-boning the passenger door and bending the frame inward. God help anyone riding on that side!

Then there were two police cars, sliding to a halt in the median: four officers running forward; two toward the overpass and two beneath it, running into the breech, trying to assist anyone who might need it. The first emergency vehicles were not far behind.

After that the helicopters landed, and one by one, gurneys with bloody bodies under blankets were whisked into their cargo bays and the birds took off again.

Gradually, the worst of the drama was over. Only smoke and death and fire and carnage were left to decorate a half-mile-long stretch of Highway 78.

The TV screen went dark. Billy picked up the small metal box and returned it to his shirt pocket.

Gresham turned from the scene she had been watching and looked first, to Billy Travis.

Then to Leather. She was crying unashamed. Her face was wet, her eyes red. She could

not speak, only gaze outward in sudden wounded understanding.

"That's why we were a little reluctant to let you see that …" Billy said softly. "Now you know what happened to Dr. Wilson."

Gresham nodded, wiping her face with both hands. Still, she could not speak.

Billy's hand still rested near the instep of Leather's right foot. "Boss?"

"It's okay," Leather whispered. "Is the kid okay?" His eyes were still closed, still averted.

Billy turned his attention to Gresham.

She nodded.

"Yeah," he said to Leather.

"One of those gurneys was Wilson," Leather finally said. "He's still in a coma after almost seventeen years … and yeah … that's where I go every month. To be with him. So … are you finished asking questions now?"

She nodded quietly. Acknowledging him.

"The other gurney they took out of there?" He did not wait for her answer.

"That was me …"

#

189


	33. Chapter 33

"Whisper of the Wind"

Chapter 33

"Hide and Seek"

March 2009

Gregory House:

House's front door opened before them as though it had known they were coming.

The opening loomed larger and larger as the wheelchair rolled closer and closer.

House sat at a slight cant to the left in an awkward attempt to keep pressure off his right leg. His hands gripped the armrests, forcing his back hard against the rear canvas. It helped distract his attention from his body being jostled by the vibration and the unavoidable jarring sensation caused by crossing the threshold. Jaw set firmly, he rolled his eyes upward and caught Billy Travis' apologetic expression as he drew the chair carefully into the room. It was St. Patrick's Day, but nobody was celebrating the Green.

"Sorry, Boss …"

"Not your fault," House grumbled. "You didn't build this horse barn." Letting himself relax forward and lowering his hands to his lap, he indicated the couch with a jerk of his head. "Just let me stretch out on the couch awhile, willya?"

From behind them came a stern: "Oh no you don't!"

Puzzled frowns from both men turned their heads in the opposite direction. The heavy apartment door closed behind them, and when a short, middle-aged woman turned to face them both, her expression held the no-nonsense approach of an angry Chihuahua. She was Hispanic, obviously, with short wiry dark hair and sparkling black eyes. There was no smile of welcome and no chance of compromise. She presented herself boldly in an immaculate set of lavender scrubs and a pair of new white sneakers. There was a nurse's watch on her left wrist and a stethoscope around her neck. She was tiny. Lisa Cuddy would seem a giant in comparison.

"What?" Billy said. "Who are you?" House's expression echoed the question. But he was hurting. A lot. She could see it in his eyes.

"I'm Carrie," she said. I'm with Bayada Nurses, and I'm your daytime caregiver. I want you back in your bedroom for an evaluation. Your first day home, we need to establish accurate records. You don't look any too stable right now. Get into bed. And you … big guy … help him! Disrobe please, down to your undershorts. I need to take a look at you. After that, we'll talk turkey. Any questions?"

House's mouth was already open, anger spiking, ready to protest.

_Talk what? Don't get snippy with me, woman!_

Carrie glared at him. "Either do as I ask, sir … or back you go to the hospital. Take your choice." There was absolutely no compromise in her gaze. Her attitude simply restated her earlier stance of confrontation.

House closed his mouth. Billy made a face that conceded his willingness to defer to her orders. Pushing the wheelchair ahead of him, he shuffled off in the direction of House's bedroom.

Things had been changed around in there. A lot.

Gregg's huge queen-size bed had been shoved against the far wall. He could only get in or out one side. In the space between the bed and the opposite wall stood an odd, scaffold-type invalid walker with underarm crutch rests sprouting from the wrap-around frame. House looked at it with distaste, but admitted reluctantly that it would probably help him get the useless right leg moving again. Next to it was a stationary bicycle with stirrups that held your feet to the pedals. It was motorized. That one was gonna fuckin' _hurt!_ There were crutches of varying configurations, canes and arm canes, all arranged in an apparatus that looked, more than anything else, like an umbrella stand. He stared at it with distaste. The whole business shouted: "CRIPPLE!!"

Last of all, a blood pressure monitor, already plugged into the wall. It was cuffed, blinking and hissing faintly, waiting for the next customer.

"Carrie Nation", or whoever-the-hell she was, had come prepared. They could hear her puttering around in the living room, probably giving them time to bitch about her rigid attitude, her grumpiness, or her Chihuahua demeanor. She was probably used to it, and they decided that any sense of friendliness had to be earned before she would give an inch.

They were right. Carrie Eldridge (her married name) was used to working with stubborn, cantankerous men who thought they should always be in charge. Well … guess what!

Billy Travis curled his giant's body over Gregory House's desperately thin one and reached beneath Gregg's arms and under his terribly injured legs. "Up ya go, Boss.

You okay?"

"Yeah," House grunted as he was lifted bodily and lowered again, gently, to the surface of the bed.

Even that area had been altered. A large, soft rubber mat covered the regular sheet. Over that, a disposable paper sheet with plastic backing crinkled beneath him as his body touched its surface. His heavy brown comforter and earth tone top sheet were rolled to the footboard, and a pile of lighter, easier-to-handle blankets replaced them. Everything could be changed every day without effort … more often if needed. It all smelled quite "hospital-y" fresh. Its smooth surface made it easy to move around on, and he was jarringly surprised.

His long distaste for not visiting his patients in their rooms had left him sadly out of date. He leaned back against the pillows and heard the unmistakable rustle of vinyl beneath the pillowcases. All very sterile. Ultimately practical.

Billy assisted him undressing. For now, his body was next-to-naked and vulnerable; no tubes, no IVs, but visible tracks and bruises where they had recently been attached. House wondered if he would be hooked up to waste-elimination apparatus again. He hoped not. They were uncomfortable and ungainly. But would he be able to handle going to the bathroom by himself? That was a question he needed an answer for.

He was suddenly cold. Billy saw him shiver and covered him with a couple of the thin blankets. House nodded appreciation, relieved not to have to look at his ravaged body.

For the thousandth time in recent days his thoughts traveled back to James Wilson. His unresponsive friend was finally resettled now, on a permanent basis, in Whitney Travis's Mountain View Hospice and Nursing Center in rural Michigan, not very far from East Lansing.

House's most recent conversations with Whit Travis had been on a most positive note. James had made his transition well. He'd had no adverse effects during the plane ride or the journey by ambulance to the institution, which would probably be his home for the rest of his life.

Wilson's identity and whereabouts had been erased permanently from the records of his last institution of residence. Whit told House that no one would ever bother Wilson for any reason. He was quite dead as far as the world was concerned. How that had been accomplished, Whit did not mention and House knew better than to ask. What Tom Wilson had started, House and Whit had finished. Wilson's body, as far as the world was concerned, was as dead as his intelligence.

Those intruding thoughts made House choke up with deep regret. It was difficult to imagine the vitality of James Wilson submerged by a non-functioning brain, and in a state of complete vegetation. And now with no identity. He longed to be at Wilson's side, talking to him, determining, if only for himself, that the magic touch of some fabled "Merlin" could not unleash that vibrant personality once again …

His own physical condition was the only thing keeping him away. When he recovered sufficiently … he swore to God … New Jersey was history! Gregory House was history! He would get the hell away from here and transplant himself to somewhere in Michigan, close to Mountain View hospice where he could be near the person who had once been so necessary to his own survival. It was his time to shit or get off the pot.

They heard footsteps coming down the hallway. Drawing closer. Then Carrie was sticking her head in the door, leaning casually, keenly appraising and peering around the edge of the doorframe. In her hand was a digital thermometer, poised and ready. She saw the blankets up to his chin. "Cold?"

"Yeah."

"Let me look you over quick … see what we can do to warm you up …" She moved close to his side and thrust the thermometer sleeve into his reluctant ear.

He flinched. "Ow!"

"Hush!"

He lay still, glaring up at her. "What would you know?"

"I know everything." She removed the probe, looked at the readout. "99.1. Up a little.

How do you feel?"

"My legs hurt …"

"I know that! I mean how do you feel overall? I don't need to know about your arm or either of your legs. I know you're in pain, and I'm here to help you with that. Tell me about your stomach, your abdomen, and how you've been feeling after the surgeries to your belly. Any sharp pain? Do you feel nauseated at all?"

"No," he said. "And no. But I'm always tired. Washed out. Wanting to sleep. I feel the need to be on my side … curled up … but then the pain in my legs and arm gets worse."

She nodded, writing notes on a small clipboard that showed up beneath the digital thermometer.

She motioned Billy to move to the foot of the bed and sit down. "Are you his friend?" She asked.

Billy nodded. "Yeah. For a long time."

She set the clipboard and thermometer down on the seat of the wheelchair and pushed it away into the corner. "May I remove the blankets for a moment?" She asked.

House looked at her with a flash of respect. She did not just grab them and pull them away. His eyes gave permission.

"Can I call you Gregg?"

"Can I call you 'Carrie Nation'?" There was a spark of something shrewd, but not unfriendly, in his eyes.

She raised an elegant brow, meeting snark with snark. This was a man she could respect. "I've been called a lot worse," she said with a twinkle. "Sure, go ahead." She lifted the blankets off him very carefully and laid them aside. She took the stethoscope and warmed it her hand, then listened to his chest: right, left, center.

She beckoned Billy to help him sit up.

She had him take deep breaths and listened to his respirations from areas of his back. She palpated his back, high and low. She ran her soft warm hands over his chest, rib cage, sternum and stomach.

Then she went to the corner and pulled the BP monitor over beside the bed. Deftly, she attached the cuff to his left arm. Set the stethoscope to the inside of his left elbow and pushed the sensor that inflated it. She studied the gauge and waited while it deflated again. The thing hissed down to empty. She marked the figures on the chart, but did not tell him the numbers, waiting for him to ask.

He didn't.

She looked at his other arm, healing well, but still too thin and too weak. She checked his left leg, also healing slowly, still without muscle tone. They would have to do something about that. Then she looked at his right leg, and wondered doubtfully if he would ever regain use of it. It was skin stretched over bone; no muscle definition, atrophied, useless. His foot was rigid and skeletal, toes pointing slightly down and slightly to the right. His Achilles tendon was totally compromised.

Carrie winked at him and saw the startled look in his eyes. "You sure are a mess!" She declared. "I'd weigh ya … but I doubt if it would even register on the scale."

Again he glared. "If you don't quit insulting me, I'm going to walk out of here and never come back."

She smiled, shoulders beginning to shake with barely contained laughter. "There's the door!"

He looked up at his dark-skinned friend and rolled his eyes.

"But ya know what? Starting tomorrow, we're gonna do our damndest to get you fixed up. Tonight I'm going to start you on a mixture of antibiotics … and something new. You have some rales in your lungs I don't like. Let's see if we can do something about 'em. Ever hear of Drenivin? Dariloxon?"

"The first one … not the second."

"Well, they're both derivatives. Dariloxon is kind of a jack-of-all-trades in the strange world of pharmaceuticals. Depends on what you mix it with. We'll see if it helps quiet the sounds I heard in there upon auscultation …"

"Cardio?" He asked. "Or respiratory?"

"Respiratory. Your heart is strong as a bongo drum!"

He smiled weakly. "Do you have to hook me up to … you know … Foley … and … ?"

She snickered. For such a tough and macho dude, she thought, he sure embarrasses easy. She bent over him and drew the blankets back over his thin body. "Depends," she said.

"On what?"

"On how much weight you can take on your left leg, and how stable your arm is as an aid to balance. Do you know?"

He shook his head. "No."

"Okay … then we need to find out." She turned again to Travis. "What's your name?"

"Sorry, Ma'am. Travis. Billy Travis."

"Okay Billy Travis. Don't call me 'Ma'am' please … just 'Carrie'. Get this man a sweat suit so he doesn't freeze his skinny ass off. We need to see if he can stand in that walker over there … long enough to pee!"

Billy practically leapt off the bed and went to his knees, rooting around in a dresser drawer for a sweat suit. He pulled out a set of navy blue shirt and pants. "These?"

They helped Gregg into them. "I just took a set of these off," he groused.

"Never mind," Carrie said. "They stank!"

"They did not!"

"Don't argue! Put 'em on!"

When he was finished, his eyes were full of new contemplation … wondering what was next from this strange middle-aged broad …

Carrie stood back from the bed and eyed him with a look of: "I dare you".

"Sit up carefully," she said. "Sit up and swing your legs over the edge of the bed. That'll tell you if you can go pee … or not."

Gregory House's face turned hard about the jaw. His eyes squinted, and his teeth clenched. He could feel a spike of fear running in waves down his spine.

Fear of pain …

This woman was challenging him: "To pee or not to pee" … that was the question.

He gathered himself and pushed his body slowly upward with all his meager strength.

His back drew away from the pillows behind him as he leaned forward. His arms both felt as though they might fall off.

Gregg took a deep breath and heaved again while Carrie and Billy both stood to the side, watching.

_Do or don't do … there is no "try" … _

He gave it all he had. Grunting. The strain on his body was formidable.

He had to get his stubborn legs off the side of the bed.

He pushed …

#

195


	34. Chapter 34

"Whisper of the Wind"

Chapter 34

"Carrie"

March 2009

Gregg:

She stood and watched, damn her, standing nonchalantly, watching me struggle to get out of that fucking bed! Twice, Billy made as if to get up and offer me a steadying hand … and twice she warned him off with her sharp, calculating eyes.

She looked like a purple pansy … a pissed-off purple pansy!

Grunting and sweating, I wanted to strangle her. I wanted to humiliate hell out of her as I was humiliated … groaning and straining and getting nowhere … I hadn't the strength to push myself to the bed's edge and swing around to drop my legs over the side. I felt like a paralyzed frog. Disgusting, but true.

Cursing, I fell back against the pillows, half on my side; enraged, incensed, and furious with my own impotency. My useless leg was like an inferno again, eating me up from the inside out. The other one wasn't far behind. I looked across at this woman with a hatred that ate at my insides like acid.

She was not impressed. She continued to look at me as though I were an insect under glass. My pain? Nothing at all to her.

At the foot of my bed, Billy Travis' eyes were red-veined and wet. He was hurting for me, but there was a look of grim understanding on his face. I glared at that woman, and could not even consider that one freakin' scrawny human being could be so callous.

Carrie looked at Billy and said: "Please go to the kitchen and heat a can of tomato soup. I have it on good authority that he likes it. Also, I see that there is American cheese in his fridge. Use two slices and make him a grilled sandwich. Easy on the butter, and lightly browned on both sides. Would you do that, please?"

Billy stood up obediently, and looked down at me for a moment. He knew he was being sent on a fool's errand, as did I, but he nodded briefly and moved off. We heard his footsteps diminish in the hall.

I slumped back, half on my back, half on my side. Exhausted. My thoughts were erratic, and I stared up at this woman, looking daggers. What the hell was she thinking?

Carrie sighed and moved toward me. The gentle nature of her touch as she helped move my legs to a comfortable position back on the mattress, astounded me. The lightning bolts in her eyes softened … a degree or two at a time.

"Do you understand now?" She asked. "You're weak as an infant. You are not even capable of sitting up by yourself, let alone stand. Or walk. You would not have believed me, so I had to prove it in the only way you could accept. I don't ever want to hurt you, Gregg. But I don't want you to hurt yourself either. We have to do this a day at a time. Okay? Can we start over from the beginning now?"

Still angry beyond all reason, I paused to think about that … while my ego deflated and my body tried to consume itself with pain. I felt my eyebrows going together in the middle, involuntarily.

Whoa, Nellie!

_Damn! Hoist by my own petard!_

When ol' Gregory House had been this high falutin' diagnostic whiz … which already seemed like a hundred years ago … he had used tricks just like this one to prove to patients that in spite of the scruff, the lousy attitude and the gross-out limp … he still knew more about everything in the world than they did …

Now here was this_ other _pain-in-the-ass, cantankerous little pissant that used the same dirty tricks I did! I wasn't sure whether to be more pissed off, or pleased to see that there was someone who could give me a run for my money.

As I glared at her, she raised an eyebrow and quirked one side of her mouth in a nasty "gotcha!" expression. "I can see you're in a lot of pain, Gregg. Will you _please _let me help you?"

She would not touch me until she had my permission, and I respected that. She had done it the same way awhile ago. We might get along.

"Yeah," I grunted. "My leg …"

After screwing around trying to be "macho man", my bum leg was seizing and useless from effort. The thing might _look_ paralyzed, but I assure you … it's not. It's full of electrical sparks and short circuits … and things that go "bump" in the night.

She strode to my bed and lifted beneath my arms. She slid me straight back against the pillows with a strength that made my jaw drop and my eyes pop. I'm sure she got a hell of a kick out of it. I'd have to watch it around her.

She straightened my legs further on the mattress after seeing that I couldn't do it myself, and ran her palms very delicately up and down their lengths. Her touch calmed the spasms and soothed some of the pain. I found myself sighing beneath her touch.

Within ten minutes she had given me some serious pain meds, had me hooked back up to the Foley and the plumbing crap … literally. She covered me to the waist with a couple of those thin blankets and slipped a toasty electric blanket around my shoulders. I felt about as comfortable as it was possible for me to feel.

I even remembered to say "thanks …"

She just winked quietly and grinned like Garfield.

Billy came back with soup and sandwiches for all … not just for me. The three of us sat munching, and I can't remember when a simple meal tasted so good.

Well, maybe back in the days when I could still talk Wilson into …

Carrie went off duty at 11:00 p.m.

But before she did, she sat down with Billy and me in the bedroom and we talked. She outlined the schedule for my rehabilitation, which would take place entirely here at my crummy little pad.

I wanted to know why.

"Control," was the simple answer. "I know your reputation, Doctor. I know how very stubborn you are, and how determined.

"There is no room in this difficult process for you to take a chance of doing something that will set you back in your recovery. Worse yet, you must not become impatient and try to hurry the process. You will have four of us who will be with you twenty-four hours a day. And it all starts tomorrow.

"Do either of you have any questions?"

"Painful, right?"

"Yeah, Gregg. Very. At least at first. But it will get better quickly. You'll be surprised."

"Sure hope so."

"Jenny Underhill will stay here tonight. Five nights a week. More recent hires will be with you on weekends.

"Your dayshift person is Jamison Harrigan. Jamie underwent the same type of rehab you're going to experience, except that he did it six years ago. His left leg was crushed in a construction accident. You have to look really close if you want to catch his limp. He doesn't work construction anymore … he works with us.

"Your licensed physical therapist is a gal named Ingrid Krauss … whom you've known for quite some time, if memory serves. She'll work with you an hour a day. And you get the weekends to rest up."

That one had me smiling. Actually, I hadn't seen Ingrid for quite some time, and the thought of her working on my arm … or my leg … either one … might be worth a little pain. Just for the view.

When I did a very impressive eye roll in Billy's direction, we all had a good laugh over it.

I have to admit that I was sweating things a little. I'd always told the first set of fellows … my "Ducklings" … that the anticipation of pain was quite as bad as the actual pain. I told the second bunch too … but they didn't think much of it, I guess …

Billy wanted to know where he fit into all this.

Carrie told him he could fit in wherever and whenever he wanted. He was, after all, my friend. You'd have thought she'd handed him two tickets to the Super Bowl.

And so it began.

Gregory House was going to walk again! I had known it in my head. But now I knew it in my heart.

Sometimes I wonder whatever became of Carrie … maybe she went to work for Whit Travis.

Nah … I would have known …

#

199


	35. Chapter 35

"Whisper of the Wind"

Chapter 35

"Synergy?"

February 2025

Leather:

Monday morning and I can't get out of bed. Can't turn, can't throw down the covers, can't move onto my back or force my head away from where it was dug deep

into the pillow. Inertia took over and insisted that I stay-the-hell where I was.

There are two kinds of "can't". The first kind has to do with the fact that "the-spirit-is-willing-but-the-body-is-weak," or some such crap like that. It means that you are hurting like hell, and are afraid to move your ass because when you do, it will hurt even worse. Even to the point of fear's paralysis.

Then there is the "I don't wanna …" whiny kind of "can't". This is the kind that keeps you rooted to the spot because you just can't bring yourself to face the day, and all the bullshit it will probably bring with it when you do.

I was in the second category. My leg was throwing sparks as usual, but still not to the extent that I couldn't stand it and had to move before I ended up climbing the walls. I just wanted to hide from the whole freaking world and deny the existence of a life that was becoming unmanageable and intolerable and scaring the shit right out of me.

I didn't want to have to look at Billy Travis' big, dark, worried face and know that every time he looked at me, he was becoming a little more fearful for my sanity. And a little more envious of what he thought I might be up to with Gresham. And I didn't want to have to acknowledge that he might be right. On both counts.

I didn't want to look at that damned kid and see fear in her face too … and confusion. She didn't understand half of it … and I still didn't understand my own feelings. She's in medical school, for God's sake! The path she's chosen for her life is difficult enough without being saddled with a schoolgirl crush on a broken-down old jerk like me. I was teetering on the edge of feeling the same way about her … and knowing I would be getting the way better bargain …

So I wanted to hide. I settled deeper into my little cocoon, closed my eyes and gave in to the pull of temporary oblivion. I lifted the covers over my face, shut out the world and let myself fade back into the shadows of a former existence. Back when I'd been whole … and healthy and vital and _alive!_

Stacy and I had lived together in this squalid little duplex I'd found when I first moved to Princeton and applied for a position at the hospital in the days before Lisa Cuddy, Administrator.

The paintball tournament was sponsored by the local Lions' Club, which charged a hefty registration fee, along with soliciting donations from sponsors and patrons. The money would be used to buy glasses for poor kids.

One Saturday in the middle of May, at least fifteen teams had registered for battle, and the one with Doctors Vs. Lawyers looked particularly intriguing. I signed up for that one, and then learned that I was the only doctor in the contest. My teammates were two male nurses, one of them Billy, an orderly and a Medicopter pilot.

The Lawyer's side had one lawyer and a whole bunch of Paralegals.

The only lawyer was a brassy female who hid behind a tree and shot me with bright red paint … in the one place where I was unprotected: the space between my chin and my shoulder. I looked as though I'd been ambushed by machine guns, and it felt gluey and sticky and was running down my ribcage inside my shirt. Yuk! Like swimming in a vat of cold spaghetti sauce.

My lawyer-cum-adversary came out from her hidey-hole laughing like a maniac. But oohhh … she was gorgeous with her dirty face, scraggly dark hair and sparkling eyes … all dressed in those silly combat boots and camo.

We made arrangements to meet for dinner that same night. We ate at one of the popular restaurants downtown. Every word she spoke to me was filled with snark and sarcasm. She made fun of my speech, my diction, my grammar. She even had the balls to tell me my pants and jacket 'clashed'. The date was a flop from the git-go.

The following week she moved in with me.

Wilson's mouth dropped open when he found out. So did Billy's. But pretty soon we were all fast friends: Wilson and his second wife; Billy and Nancy, his girlfriend, and Stacy Ames and me.

It was the best four and a half years of my life, up to that time.

Then the infarction hit …

I couldn't hide beneath the bed covers any longer. The dream shattered, broke apart and blew away in tiny fragments. My eyes wouldn't stay closed. I was fully awake. Might as well get up and quit hiding behind "can't".

That's when the peaceful couple of hours with no leg pain went out the window. I knew I would have to get up to take my meds. If I didn't, then I would indeed be climbing the walls.

I pulled on my sweats and hobbled out to the living room, caneless, propped up by the rough cement block walls painted white with rubber paint. My foot dragged and laid over at the ankle … where the _hell_ did I leave the freakin' cane? I staggered to the couch and flopped down. One of the bottles with the phony Vicodin was there, and I popped the last two of them. I'd look for my spare bottle … later.

Maybe I could hide out here the rest of the day. I propped a pillow behind my back and shoved the other one beneath the leg.

_Ow! … ow! … ow ow ow …_

Gresham:

It was a difficult day on the wards. There had been quite a few new admissions over the weekend, and we spent considerable time with them all. We went over their diagnoses, and each person's prognosis. We talked with each of them … and I remembered what Leather had told me months ago when we had first spoken, down in the Spider Banks.

"They lie," he'd said. "For every reason you can imagine. Some of them don't even make sense. They lie about how much they eat … how much they drink. The truth would be easier on everyone; themselves included. They lie to keep from embarrassing themselves … or to keep their families in the dark about what they've been up to …"

I remembered his words with a smile; for there was one man we spoke to earlier who fit Leather's descriptions so well that I almost laughed in the guy's face. Later, when I mentioned my suspicions to the resident in charge of rounds, he checked up on the guy. I was right! He was lying through his teeth rather than have his wife find out he'd been having an affair with her sister!

Later, I smiled to myself and was properly humble amid congratulations. Inside though, I was smug and sarcastic. A true Disciple of Leather the Magnificent.

I hunted for Billy at lunch later and plopped down beside him in the caff.

He looked at me with a weary smile, and I figured he'd done a night shift with four hours' overtime. I was right about that too. I hated to bother him because I knew he was tired … but I had to know.

"How's Leather doing?" I asked. "Talk to him this morning?"

Billy shook his head in the negative. "No," he said. "I've been on the surgical floor since eleven o'clock last night. Haven't seen him, haven't heard from him. If he's here, he's probably over at his office. You should check there …"

For the first time, I began to realize that I was being pushy. Billy was tired of talking about nothing but Leather … Leather … Leather. He was wishing I would at least ask him how _he _was doing …

I did, but I was a little too late. He knew where my interests lay, and he was in the process of turning his own interests elsewhere also … or trying to.

I took two bites from my bologna sandwich and drank half a glass of milk. I felt like crap, because I hadn't meant to hurt Billy. But I'd not smartened up in time. I thanked him, told him I'd see him later, got up, bussed my tray and left. I didn't look back. I knew what I would see.

Leather was not in his tacky old office in the belfry with the bats. I knew he wasn't because the elevator was in working order. Everything was unlocked though, and I walked in. Except for the name plaque on the door and a black marble mortar and pestle on his desk …

… and a tiny metal statue of Mr. Peanut that I hadn't seen before … the dingy room was glaringly empty. There was an old tan jacket hanging on a clothes rack in the corner, and an older pair of broken-down brown leather boots beneath it that seemed to call his name out loud … but otherwise, the place was terribly bare.

I turned, puzzled, and left again. I went back outside and walked past the employees' lot where he always parked. The old Edinburgh was not in his handicap space. Leather was not here. I wondered if he was all right. After a very short time, the wondering turned to worry.

_Oh God … is he all right??_

The Spider Banks would lie abandoned tonight. I put it out of my mind in an instant and made a decision that would change my life forever.

I caught the shuttle on the corner by the student union, knowing it went directly past his apartment complex.

The thing took forever to get there. Stops on every corner, people in the middle of the blocks flagging us down. The motorman accommodated them all with a grin and a nod. I soon wanted to wipe that grin off his silly face with my fist!

_Patience … patience …_

I got off at the corner across from his apartment and ran across the street. The car was in its parking space and I ran up the sidewalk to his door. A few curious faces appeared behind drawn curtains, other tenants wondering what this kid could be doing at Leather's place twice in the same week.

I banged on his door a few times before an answer drifted out to me, soft and muffled, from inside.

"It's open, W. T." Wearily …

I leaned into the door and barged inside, half fearful of what I might find. The door banged shut behind me.

He was on the couch, curled on his left side and huddled under the brown throw that he kept on the back of it. The bottom half had slid down over his body and lay mostly on the floor.

I walked over in front of him and went to my knees near his head. He was clenched upon himself, obviously cold. I hefted the blanket and covered his butt and legs and feet. But where was his cane? He did not have it with him.

"Leather? What's going on?"

He risked an eye and stared up at me through a glittering slit, nearly hidden by the hem of the throw. "Great disguise, Travis!" He grumbled. "How'd you manage that? You look like a girl …" He did not seem surprised to see me, only pissed.

I ignored the sarcasm. "You didn't show up at work …" Lame.

"Brilliant deduction." He was shivering.

I leaned over him and gathered his shoulders beneath the warmth of my upper body. "You're sick, aren't you?"

"Whatever gave you that idea?"

"Why must you make a joke of everything, Leather? You know I care about you ..."

"Gresham, you're a fool! I make a joke of it _because_ you care for me …"

He pushed up with his arms and forced me to sit back. Had he just said what I thought he'd said? "Huh?"

"Gresham … this won't work. The timing is way off. Another ten years added onto you … maybe. Ten years less on me … maybe. But this is nuts. My days are numbered, and I can't afford to get involved. There's something I have to see through to the end … and then it's my time to go …"

"Wilson …"

"Yeah. I care about you, Gresham. The first time I cared about a woman in twenty-odd years. But I won't. I can't get involved because he was there first."

He pushed himself to a sitting position and met my gaze with those piercing, smoky eyes. I did not argue. He was not well, and the last thing I wanted to do was upset him. I touched his forehead. His temp was up a little, but a thin band of moisture ringed his hairline. I took his face between both my palms. "Dizzy?"

"Yeah. Don't play 'doctor' with me, Gresham. My temp has spiked from time to time ever since the accident. I'm borrowing someone else's lungs and liver and kidneys … and I'll soon need another kidney transplant 'cause I'm peeing pink every once in awhile."

"Jesus, Leather! Have you told anyone?"

"Yeah … they monitor me …"

He began to move away, pushing to his feet. I watched him closely on the smooth floor, and only in his sock feet. He was unsteady, and no cane. I dipped down and came up under his right shoulder. He gave me a dirty look, but said nothing. He was so damned tall that I was barely able to shore him up.

"Where is your cane?"

"Don't know." He shrugged, disinterested. He was really feeling like crap.

I helped him to his bedroom and onto the bed. The bed was a big one. Tall old walnut headboard and footboard. The mattress was high off the floor. He must have had the damned thing forever … long before his leg went south the first time. He rolled over onto his back and the palm of his hand went quickly to his thigh. Did I dare look at it?

He was reading my mind. "Oh no you don't!" He said. "My leg will be fine. So will the rest of me. My other meds are probably on the counter in the bath. Make yourself useful and bring 'em here … okay?"

I scowled at him, but did as he requested.

He took three pills … one of the Vicodin/Drenivin hybrids and two others I didn't recognize. I didn't ask. I wasn't a doctor yet. He was!

I stayed with him while he slept. I covered him all the way to his chin and sat beside the bed with the lights dimmed. A few times he fussed, and his brow wrinkled with stress and probably pain … like a little kid. I smoothed his wiry hair back from his forehead and from time to time cupped his face in the palm of my hand.

Asleep, he was an innocent. Awake, he was a terror.

Later I dozed.

I left at dark. He was still sleeping.

I have never felt so mixed up in my life.

But he was right: this was never going to work …

#

206


	36. Chapter 36

"Whisper of the Wind"

Chapter 36

"Suddenly There's A Valley"

April 2025

Leather:

Spring was coming. Finally. The weather was beginning to lighten up a little more every day.

God, I was sick of winter! I had to be so careful of walking anywhere. Don't hurry … don't take chances … knowing that if I went down on icy sidewalks I might not get up again.

Now we were having a warm respite, at least in that regard. Warmer weather meant no ice. But I had learned a long time ago that any time one end of the scale tipped upward, the other end slammed down on ya, hell-hoopin'!

Billy Travis is avoiding me. He thinks I'm playing Gresham for a fool … taking unfair advantage of her crush on me. Christ! How long has he known me? I don't do that kind of stuff … at least not anymore.

I have to remember that Billy is fighting the consequences of his own crush, and trying to accept the fact that she doesn't see him the way he sees her. He doesn't dog my tracks everywhere I go anymore, and I miss him. But I don't know what to do about it. So I do nothing.

This emotional stuff isn't like diagnosing an illness. The clues don't stay put. They keep moving around … changing. Morphing. I'm really shitty at trying to deal with emotions, my own or anybody else's. There's no surgical procedure for that crap. No pills to soak up the pain of being lovelorn …

Gresham is quiet when she's in the Spider Banks lately, and we don't say much to one another. We both walk around on eggshells, for fear one of us will say the wrong thing and make the act of being together in the workplace unbearable for both of us. She does her job and leaves on time, saying that the medicine and the studying and the research are getting more difficult. She hasn't time to talk. She must get the work done.

I don't doubt it. I remember the drudgery. And I let the excuses ride.

I bite my tongue to keep the sarcasm inside. I don't have fancy words to make pretty speeches and apologize for being such a "sexy hombre". I wouldn't apologize anyway, probably, 'cause that talent just aint in me. I would rather keep it all inside and build up the stomach acid and be pissed off at this pretty little farm girl who's been protected all her life and doesn't know any better than to look for a "daddy" figure to fall in love with because she's so far away from home …

_Shit! Slow down here! Take a deep breath and come up for air!_

She's the least of my problems.

Shirley Appel Zai-Zoed me from Mountain View to tell me that Whitey has been acting funny lately.

Oh God! How can a man with zero brain function "act funny"? She said he's been restless … and weeping more … and his hands are nervous … as though he's reaching for something that isn't there. How can he reach for something when he doesn't know what "something" is?

Twice now I've taken time away from work … gone to be with him, sat beside him. Kept him company, kept him calm. Held his hands in my own and tipped his head onto my shoulder.

I ate their food, used their shower, wore their scrubs and even changed Whitey's diaper once.

I still call him "Whitey". Habit, I guess, even though his secret is out.

For Whitey, I have the words …

I can tell him what he means to me, because he never argues. He has been my whipping boy for so long … and I, his! I can calm him with soft phrases and the retelling of some of our more ribald adventures, back in the days when we were both normal men.

Those days are so long ago now, but I have no trouble remembering them. I let myself dare to believe that somewhere in that vast emptiness of his consciousness, he hears the sound of my voice. I want him to know of my respect for what we once had together.

Who would have believed that under the right circumstances, this old fart could bring himself to tears with old stories about Princeton-Plainsboro?

Eric Foreman and Whazzisname Chase and Lisa Cuddy and Goody Two-Shoes Cameron and Chris Taub and goofy Whazzisname Kuttner and the other Whazzername … Hadley … the one with the number and the physique like a pretzel rod.

Billy and Bonnie and Julie and Stacy and Lady and Ingrid and Grace and Scooter … and Amber? Who would have thought … ?

When I'm with him, the rest of the world just goes away and I can relax. My leg doesn't hurt, my guts don't churn, and his warm body beside me makes it all okay again.

_Oh Wilson … why did you have to go away and leave me here alone?_

Sometimes I am not as "together" as I pretend. The same plea for his return always comes back to haunt me.

_WHY??_

His absence is a great black hole at my side, and I'm being sucked into the vortex with him a little more every day.

I was back to work three days after the last scare … and it was toward the end of April.

I got a call at 10:00 a.m. on a Tuesday morning from Whitney Travis.

"Gregory … whatever you're doing, drop it and get over here! Wilson is in crisis. The doctors think we're gonna lose him …

"Hurry, Gregg!"

I dropped everything and ran.

Yeah … ran!

I know I did, because I found myself in my car and on the highway without my cane. And my leg was consuming itself with fire. I clenched my teeth and _drove …_

It was an hour's trip to Mountain View … one-way … and I got there with my heart in my throat and an inability to get out of the car.

Jeremy and Whit were waiting. They knew me very well, and they stood at the front entrance with a wheelchair. It was humiliating, but necessary.

They whisked me onto the elevator and up to the third floor. You couldn't tell there was a problem at all until you actually turned the corner into his room. Keeping excitement down and not agitating other patients was paramount. The staff kept everything under control without excessive noise.

His door was closed, the blue light flashing above it.

There were two doctors in there, working at his side, monitoring his vital signs with state-of-the-art equipment. He was not intubated, but respirators were within easy reach.

An EEG machine was patched in, making sticky clumps of his snow-white hair. The readings were no different from what they'd been when he was first evaluated in some ER, right after the accident. His pupils fluctuated sluggishly and I feared herniation. He lingered midway between moments of respiratory distress and taking great gulps of air. His gnarled hands curled tightly in his lap, the fingers shiny and painful looking.

Shirley was at his side, a warm cloth in her hand, gently wiping his face. He looked a little like a panicky child, not understanding what was being done to him. His nostrils were distended, another sign of apprehension. These were not symptoms of someone in a coma. They were signs of cognitive fear. I pushed out of the wheelchair and hop-stepped to his side. His head pressed back on the pillow when I touched his forearm.

Shirley moved aside and assisted me in moving in front of him. Would his eyes follow me? No. There was no response. The doctors were removing the EEG leads from his head, and Shirley smoothed back his tangled hair as gently as possible. Jeremy moved in against the opposite side of the bed in order to help.

Whit stood in the doorway with a worried look on his face. In that pose, he looked very much like his younger brother. I missed Billy at that moment … I had not even notified him of what had happened that tore me away from the university like a bat out of hell.

"Does the change in him have anything to do with the Ambien sleeping formula we've been giving him?" Whit asked. "There isn't much available by way of research yet. It's too new … but remember Dora Carlisle? She got restless at night and we were giving her Ambien. A couple months later she showed signs of coming out of her coma. Now she's home with her family … beginning to talk and feed herself."

The doctors shook their heads in unison. "I'd really love to tell you that that's what happened with Dorie," one of them said. "But there's no evidence to support anything other than just a spontaneous awakening in her case. Some of them come out of it and some don't. If this is what's happening with Whitey here, I'm not sure he has enough time left for us to prove it, one way or another. I'm sorry, Whit … Leather. I wish we could be more positive."

"Is that why he's been so agitated lately?" I asked.

"We don't know. He's suddenly failing, and we honestly have no idea why."

Beside me, Whitey settled back and his head flopped to the right.

I settled beside him, keeping a hand on his forearm. He did not respond, but his slow breathing pattern evened out and his rigid body relaxed. He looked very weak, very tired. His skin resembled worn parchment paper, and his face was beginning to look old and wizened. Funny, I hadn't noticed it before, and I was frightened … more frightened than I had been in a long time. Was I really losing him?

I switched my attention upward to the spot where both doctors lingered by the bedside. I did not like the looks on their faces.

The look on Shirley Appel's face was even less heartening. Her eyes were red-rimmed, her face, splotchy. "What's going on?" I demanded.

The pause before I got a response from any of them told me more than I wanted to know.

"He's dying, Leather," one of the doctors finally responded. "It has nothing to do with the strange things he's been experiencing lately … and there's nothing we can do for him anymore. His body is worn out. He's been comatose a long time, and it looks as though his vitals are finally shutting down. I can see no kind way of giving you a running inventory … or catalogue for you everything else that's going wrong. There's no logical reason why we should put him through a whole battery of tests just to confirm that he's losing the battle. He has no means to fight this any longer. I'm very sorry."

"How long?"

"A day … a week … soon."

"It will be sooner," I told him. "It started right after Christmas, and every time I've visited him it's been a little worse. I'm staying here with him. The only way I'll leave now is if he gets out of this bed and we walk out together."

"That's pretty final, isn't it, Leather?" Whit was looking at me with concern.

"Yeah. It is, Whit … and if you talk to Billy … ?"

"I'll tell 'im."

"Thanks."

When next I opened my eyes, they were all gone, the lights were dimmed, his door was open and my vigil had begun. Whitey slept, pressed tightly against me. He was not hooked to feeding tubes, pulse ox, Foley, pain meds. Only the EKG. This was final.

As the day wore on, I moved back to the wheelchair in order to get to the rest room. Shirley and Jeremy brought me soup and sandwich. Simple and nourishing. They supplied me with meds from their coffers because I had left without my own. Neither of them made a move to go home at the end of shift, and for some silly reason I was grateful for their lingering presence.

I went to the piano and let my fingers caress the keys, reaching for the familiar chords of ballads, old standards and songs of nostalgia, ending with "Side By Side". I was aware of doors opening all along the long hallway. Respectful silences as each of the rooms' inhabitants listened quietly.

I resumed the playing. "Stardust", "Moonlight in Vermont", "Moon Over Miami", "Old Buttermilk Sky", "Stars Fell on Alabama", "Blue Star Will Shine Tonight" …

"_Nights are long since you went away … I dream about you all through the day … my buddy … my buddy … your buddy misses you …"_

I played until it was physically and mentally impossible to play anymore.

I turned the wheelchair around and looked at my best friend, mentally mapping the planes of his face and knowing that I was seeing him alive, probably for the last time.

_Was_ there that "Plateau" we had spoken of? Would we meet again on the other side?

I looked hard into his silent face, and my imagination told me he looked back with more than just a shadowy blankness in his eyes. His arthritic fingers moved aimlessly, but his eyes seemed to glitter with purpose.

Jeremy and Shirley had left again and gone out to the nurse's station to enter the Zai-Zo report to the PING. Jimmy and I were alone.

I circled the bed and pulled up on the other side of it, close to his head. His eyes did not follow my movements, and for a moment I was disappointed. I lurched out of the chair and struggled to pull myself back against the pillow at his side. I could feel muscle and nerve spasms beginning in my thigh, but my concentration was locked elsewhere, giving me strength to ignore the jerky movements on the surface of the bed.

He was extraordinarily still, but his head leaned into the dip in the pillow caused by my weight against it. His face was no more than six inches away from mine, and again I had a sensation of willful transition as his gaze met my own.

It was probably coincidence. His breathing was changing. He was gasping now; short, shallow breaths. He frowned for a moment, eyebrows crunched like orgasmic spiders. Then the corners of his mouth tugged upward. It looked like a facial tic … but I _knew!_

_Oh God!_

I turned to grasp his shoulders with both hands. Gently, I drew him to me, ignoring the irregular breathing. I held him, my right hand supporting his head gently at the base of his neck.

"Wilson … ??"As I whispered his name, he looked directly at me.

For just a heartbeat, he was there. He was himself and he was totally with me. I could feel the difference in an instant of returning intelligence that strengthened his entire body.

"H-House …"

He died quietly in my arms at sundown. I held him another minute, knowing it was time to let go. I placed him back against the pillow and slid my fingers gently down across his dark eyes, shutting him away from me forever. I did not try to stop the tears that anointed my face.

Out in the real world, Passover had just begun.

See ya one of these days, Wilson …

His EKG monitor began to wail.

Footfalls pelted along the hallway.

It was over, and he had set me free to follow …

#

213


	37. Chapter 37

"Whisper of the Wind"

Chapter 37

"Serendipity"

June, 2009

Gregory House:

It's June.

June, for Chrissakes! I'm coming up on another birthday. My fiftieth. I have no damn intention of mentioning it. Not to anyone! As far as I'm concerned, birthdays have gone the way of the dinosaur. Any celebration will be inside my own head … a miracle that I managed to get this freakin' old … and nothing's fallen off yet!

The accident happened a full year ago, and I still haven't seen Wilson. I'm about ready to climb the walls like I predicted a long time ago. I _need _to go to Wilson. I've been denied the right to go there … to touch him … see for myself that he's still alive, still breathing, even without a mind. If I don't soon get out of here, _his_ mind won't be the only one doing a disappearing act!

Carrie and Billy keep telling me that my bones are "too fragile", but I'm sick of being protected. Sick of being treated with kid gloves. Weary of being warned not to push too hard. Sick and tired of being sick and tired. Everything is healed now, except for the damned leg, which is the only thing holding me back.

I know it's because I spent so long in the damn hospital, and much of that time I was told the doctors feared I would never leave. _I_ knew I would leave … eventually … but try convincing some starched, lab-coated Ben Casey of that! What happened to the clout of the "notorious" Gregory House?

Six months of organ failure, plaster casts and twilight-zone awareness didn't give them much hope for my re-entry to the real world. But I did come out of it and went on the mend. I'm still mending. I've been home for three months. Hah! Two-dimensional thinking! Three months is still a freakin' long time to sit around and stare at the same four walls.

Me and Wilson! Both staring at walls because we have no choice … but for vastly differing reasons. Pathetic!

Carrie keeps yammering about the fragility. I know she's right. I can't walk. The leg folds beneath me with even a small amount of pressure, making me howl in pain … and that does nothing at all for my disposition.

Today is another Friday … piled on top of a dozen others … and I'm restless and angry, and it's getting worse. I'm foul-mouthed to everyone around me; everyone trying to help me … and I can't control my temper. I dumped the damned wheelchair two weeks ago. Rammed it into the wall and bent a wheel. Carrie Nation called me a spoiled teenager. That's a new one! I'm moving around just fine on crutches, except that the foot drags. I have no strength in what's left of my thigh muscle to hold it off the floor.

I need to get the hell out of this apartment _by myself_ and get to Michigan and Mountain View and Wilson. I need to disappear into the woodwork and get away from _people!_

I pleaded with Carrie and Billy and Ingrid today, to find a leg brace that would allow me some freedom without putting me in danger of breaking my freaking neck from dragging my foot behind me like a broken tree limb. They looked at me with blank faces tinged with hints of sorrow … and a small amount of fear that I might be getting ready to throw another destructive tantrum.

Only Billy had anything to say. "Let me call Whit," he suggested. "Give me some time to see what he and his staff can come up with …"

Whit is Billy's brother … the guy who owns Mountain View; the guy I called after Tom Wilson told me the world thought his brother was dead. Whit took care of all the vital arrangements and had Wilson flown in on a plane from some other hole-in-the-wall dump where Tom kept him hidden. Before then, I never even knew Billy had a brother! Billy told me Whit would do right by Wilson … and I trust Billy.

I think Billy is a little leery of Whit though. Turns out, the guy is a millionaire … used to work for the government, but decided to "retire" and become an entrepreneur. Whatever that means in his case. I wondered what the hell he could possibly do to make my leg any more stable … or do something to make me less of a prisoner of my own disability.

Whit isn't a doctor. What "staff"? What's Billy talking about?

Again I'm frustrated by circumstances. Again I have to wait. I tend to equate "waiting" with "constipation". Nothing ever seems to come out right.

I paced around the apartment all morning, angry as always, hobbling about like a three-legged dog, dragging the toe of my sock across the polished floor. Carrie stays away from me, attending to chores in the kitchen, knowing I seldom go out there because it's just too damn difficult to maneuver in those close quarters. I've stopped yelling at her, because she yells back.

And sometimes I yell just to yell … to hear the sound of my own voice bounce off the walls so I don't take it out on the walls by bouncing off them with my fists. The wheelchair I ruined because of my temper, kind of scared me. I don't want to hit a person!

When I'm not yelling, I keep the television close to full volume just so there is enough noise coming in from the outside world … keep me believing that the real world still exists out there somewhere!

_Fuck! I hate this!_

Again, I spent the day being babysat. Ingrid got here about noon. She manipulated my leg, guiding me while I worked the knee joint slowly. We finally broke down the scar tissue that formed while I was in a cast all those months, but the pain that resulted from the movement was so bad that it made me nauseous.

Sometimes I hate seeing her arrive. She's a beautiful woman with a warm and loving heart, gentle hands and a surprisingly calm nature. She never raises her voice, never admonishes me for the way I carry on beneath her touch.

But when the sessions end, I'm so weak with pain that I just lie here like a rag doll while tears of anger and frustration run down my face. Ingrid elevates my leg and lays a heating pad across it. She wipes my skin with a cool cloth and assures me that I have done well … and I always lash out with some stupid remark in an attempt to save face.

I know she understands, but she's probably getting sick of it … and me.

Macho Man needs to cry like a baby … but won't. Pride rules!

Billy Travis came back that evening with a question that almost caused me to have a heart attack on the spot:

His brother, Whit, was flying in to Princeton the next day … and how would I like to spend the remainder of the weekend with Wilson?

I'm not often rendered speechless by anything or anybody.

But this … this did it. I was aware of my mouth dropping open. And I remember saying something like … "Whaa … ?"

Total disbelief. Or else my hearing had stopped working too.

"Say again??"

"My brother," he repeated with a huge grin on his face, "is going to fly in to Princeton airport tomorrow … the same plane he used to fly Wilson to Mountain View …" Billy paused and waited patiently for my brain to catch up.

"He said he would fly you back to Mountain View with him so you can consult with his staff on Monday. They may be able to fabricate a brace for your leg. They have some rather fancy technology there.

"In the meantime, you can spend the weekend with Wilson … sit with him, meet his caregivers, learn how they take care of him … and just let yourself relax someplace that isn't … _here! _ Sound good to you?"

"Oh God! Oh God! What's the catch?"

"No catch. You might be able to help them with a few new experiments though …"

"And this is considered … 'not-a-catch' … how?"

"They have to take precision measurements of your leg … and your thigh … and your foot and ankle … and it would be best if you were actually _there_ while they did that. It's that kind of 'not-a-catch'. Okay? "

Billy was still grinning, and I wasn't sure I even wanted to know what the hell that meant, or whether the grin was diabolical or not. In the meantime, I didn't care. I was being offered the opportunity to be reunited with Wilson. For that, they could exchange my blood for transmission fluid and use it to lubricate the lawn mower … I didn't give a shit!

"Sold!"

That night I won two hundred bucks from him and Carrie, playing stud poker. And when I went to bed, I slept like a baby.

Aint it amazing what a little good news can do for an angry man … ?

#

217


	38. Chapter 38

"Whisper of the Wind"

Chapter 38

"Whispering to the Wind"

June 2009

Gregory House:

When I came dragging out through the living room in my scrubs Saturday morning, Jamie was already puttering around in the kitchen. He heard my crutches clumping along on the hardwood floor and poked his head around the doorway. "Morning, Dr. House. You're up early."

I leaned against the doorjamb in haphazard fashion, giving him a warning glare that told him for the thousandth time he didn't have to address me by any formal appellations or titles. He ignored me as usual, smiling like a shy teen-ager, and kept his attention focused on what he was doing.

While he busied himself stirring eggs in a bowl, the front door opened to admit Billy Travis and a man who could be no one else but his brother, Whitney.

"Peas in a pod", to coin a very old phrase. They were carbon copies of each other with about a ten-year space in between. Whit had iron-grey hair, while Billy's was still pretty black. Whit wore glasses and Billy did not. Whit wore his hair short while Billy's still "clacked". They were both wearing blue jeans, sneakers and tee shirts.

I looked across the room and grinned. My ticket to Wilson! And maybe a solution to my problem with walking. Both were pretty good reasons to smile.

While Billy introduced Whit to us, Jamie finished breakfast and brought in a huge tray heaped with mounds of bacon, scrambled eggs, hash browns and coffee and placed it all on the coffee table. We did not speak of Wilson because Jamie didn't know. None of the others caregivers did either, for that matter. Jamie believed I was simply being allowed a change of scenery at last, and he was in total agreement with that.

Whit took a deep breath and sighed. "That smells wonderful," he said. "I skipped breakfast this morning so I could get started early." He took a place at the far end of the couch, nodded minutely to his brother, and patted the seat to his left. "Come over and sit beside me, Gregg. It's important that I get to know you a bit before I can work with you. Do you mind?"

"No," I said, "I don't mind." Already I was beginning to get that nagging flutter inside me that said: "here-comes-the-catch …"

I pushed away from the doorway and started across the room. I could feel Whit's eyes on me with keen appraisal; gauging my movements, calculating the parts of me that worked, and the parts that didn't. Already I was a mosquito under a magnifying glass.

I racked the crutches and swung about, preparing to sit down beside him.

"Stand still a second, Gregg … can you?" He was off the couch, on his knees between couch and coffee table. I stiffened when his fingers went to my knee, and flinched when he touched my leg beneath the thin scrubs.

"What are you doing?" It was an effort to keep the alarm out of my voice.

"Sorry," he said, sitting back. "I just wanted to check how badly your bones are still out of alignment. "Can you place your foot flat on the floor?"

I frowned, glaring at him. "No. Can't get the heel down. Hurts too much. Why?"

"That's interesting." He hitched up and sat on the couch again. "Please. Sit down."

I did, clumsily. That tiny bit of exertion had made me shaky. I settled the crutches beside me and reached beneath my knee to settle my leg in a likewise manner. Tiny spasmodic tics were becoming visible in my thigh beneath the material of the scrubs. Whit observed them closely for a moment, and then reached for the bony ridge behind my knee where the adductor magnus branched off the femur. A quick pinch between the hamstrings with his strong thumb and third finger brought the tremors to an immediate halt.

"Kinda like a mama lion picks up her cub," he explained when I looked at him in surprise. "Really grabs on. Cub relaxes, lets go. Mama wins. Same principle. Really shocks hell out of a man's muscles and ligaments. A member of my staff taught me that move."

I frowned at him, still getting used to the sudden release of pain. Niice! Gingerly I picked up a paper plate to load it with eggs and bacon and potatoes. "Didn't know you were a doctor …"

He chuckled. "I'm not. I'm an engineer … and part-time lab rat … and don't try that yourself. You haven't the strength in your fingers."

"Huh?"

Everyone's attention had been focused on the two of us, waiting for the sparks that would ignite my temper and cause me to go off on him for touching me. But that wasn't gonna happen. I wanted more information from this "engineer-lab rat" who manipulated a damaged leg like a doctor.

Even Ingrid had never …

Whit chuckled softly and picked up his own plate to load it down. That broke the ice. Everyone else followed suit.

"You remember how you and Bill and Jimmy used to work on old cars …" Whit continued. Billy had obviously filled him in on our cruddy earthy hobby of many years ago.

"Yeah?"

"You know how it is when a rear universal joint goes bad." He took a bite and munched thoughtfully. "You have to get under there and take the rear one down and replace it. It's a nasty job for a back-yard mechanic … and if you have to replace the rear one, you should replace the front one too, so the new one doesn't rip the older one out."

"Yeah … but what's that got to do with … ?"

"Well … your universal joints are messed up. The biological ones. The ones in your knee were injured real bad in the accident. They repaired them. The one in your ankle was okay, so they let it be. But the pain later on when you started rehab caused you to favor it, and it went gradually out of line. Now your ankle has no stability and your missing thigh muscle prevents your having the strength to make the rest coordinate in unison. You're double screwed. Maybe the mechanics at Mountain View can fix the other "universal" … what your doctors had no way of knowing a year ago … kapeesh?"

"I'm not sure …"

What he was telling me was a long way from making the kind of sense I needed in order to process the similarities between car parts and human parts … apples to oranges … whatever. Like me trying to explain the blood-brain barrier to him. No comprendo!

In the meantime, we were all chowing down and enjoying it. We were also thinking about what he'd said, but were not to the point of posing any intelligent questions. Not yet. My leg didn't hurt. Wow!

By the time Carrie arrived, I was dressed in jeans, one sneaker, rag socks, and a tee shirt. Billy had my bag packed so I wouldn't have to spend the entire weekend … or however long this lasted … in scrubs. I was even rethinking the "not-a-catch" accusation.

Carrie looked me up and down with taut appraisal. "You okay, Hoss?"

"Yeah, I'm okay," I grumbled. "What the hell are you doing here on a weekend?"

"I just stopped by to say 'so long', have a good flight, a good visit with Mr. Travis … and I sincerely hope they can figure out a fix for your leg. Maybe they can attach a ratchet to your mouth too … so I can crank it shut once in awhile …"

"You are one miserable old broad, you know that?"

She smiled and touched my arm. "Yeah, I know that, House … but you love me anyway."

I did not validate that with an answer. But she knew. Damn her.

Whit Travis stood looking back and forth between us. The others were laughing.

We introduced the two of them quickly, and then we were out the door. Billy's big Denali SUV was parked tight against the curb. He and his brother walked slowly and deliberately on either side of me while I maneuvered carefully across the sidewalk.

It took two airport maintenance guys to lift my crippled ass into the cockpit of the little company jet, get my crutches and my leg positioned, and strap me in. The logo on the door consisted of a horseshoe with letters within it that read: "MVE, Ltd." I had a pretty good idea what it stood for.

Whit got pre-flight from the tower and made a few adjustments. We were in the air within minutes. Billy's SUV was speeding directly beneath us as the little jet looped around and headed west. He was on his way back to town. A long muscular arm extended out the driver's side window and waved madly. Whit waggled the wings and we were away.

We landed at Willow Run Airport, Ypsilanti. Smooth as silk, right up to the small terminal. Whit cut the engine and looked across at me. We hadn't spoken much on the flight in. I was antsy as hell, and he seemed to know. It had only taken a little over half an hour, but my leg was pounding. He seemed to know that also.

"Air pressure up there giving you a little trouble?"

I nodded. "Yeah. I thought that might be what was doing it."

"Uh huh. Quite a difference between up there and down here. Sit still for a few minutes. One of the guys will be here with the car soon. Do you want me to get your meds out of your luggage?"

I nodded again, biting my lip. "Yeah … please."

He was unassuming about it. Calm and methodical, like someone who did this kind of thing every day. Maybe he did. He reached behind our seats and lifted my overnighter up front. Settling it on the console between us, he turned away and looked at his watch.

I took the meds and rezipped the bag.

The yammer of a big diesel engine broke through our thoughts and we glanced up to see an angry looking, chrome-clad black HumVee pull up close to the side of the plane. The logo on the front door was the same as the one on the plane. I tried not to be too freakin' impressed.

"Here's your ride," Whit said unnecessarily. He jumped down from his side of the plane, slammed the door shut and walked around to my side. Opened the door. I looked down doubtfully, wondering how the hell I was supposed to get out of there.

He was grinning like a six-year-old with a secret, making fun of the way I looked at him when his two huge arms extended toward me. Was he going to _carry _me?

I was about to make a loud, indignant stink when he said: "Oh hush up, Gregg! Billy says he carries you around like a ventriloquist dummy all the time. So give me a break and don't start!"

" … Not _all _the time!"

If I was going to be likened to a ventriloquist dummy, then I guessed I should pretend like my string had been cut. I clammed up and leaned into him, humiliated by the fact that he had the strength of a healthy Grizzly bear … just like his brother. Just like I used to have …

The over-tall driver of the Hummer stood aside with the back door open, and Whit allowed me to slide out of his grip and onto the seat with as much dignity as I could muster. Actually, he had done the transfer quickly and privately, and other people moving about on the tarmac never paid any attention.

"Thanks, Whit," I said, and meant it. He met my eyes with a curt nod, and in that moment we became friends. I hadn't even done anything to earn it!

"Just a word of warning, Gregg … when we get to the mansion, you've got to use a wheelchair. I can't have you dragging your foot like that. You kind of scare me … and when you go in with Whitey, you could get tangled in his IVs and feeds. Okay?"

What he said made sense. "Agreed." But I was also puzzled. "'Whitey'?"

He smiled a little sadly. He had no time frame for how long it had been since I'd seen my best friend. "His caregivers nicknamed him that … and when you see him, you'll know why."

He winked. "Ready?"

"Yeah." I was so close now. I didn't trust myself to say any more than that. But my insides were churning. I was on my way to Wilson after all this time.

The car's driver brought my overnighter and my crutches and set them in the back seat beside me. "Buckled up, you? …Doc?" He asked.

_Huh? What the hell did you just say??_

He was so tall I couldn't see the top of his head from where I sat. I wondered if the guy was from around here … or what. I fumbled with the belts and clicked them into place. "I am now."

I was tired. And I hurt. My barely healed bones and muscles protested the hard ride of the Hummer and the poor condition of the road. Once we got away from the airport proper and out on the highway, the ride improved and didn't jar me like a paint shaker anymore. I took a deep breath and looked out at the scenery.

Michigan was a very green state. This part of it, at least, consisted mostly of rolling hills rather than flatland or mountains. We must have passed at least four dirt farms devoted entirely to the growing of sod plots … rolled up lengths of nothing but dark green grass intended for the landscaping trade. There were mounds and mounds of them dotting the fields as far as the eye could see. Spaced like the rounded hay bales you see on farms in New York and Pennsylvania. The sky was blue and cloudless, the sun beginning to dip to the west, and I was suddenly aware of the HumVee slowing down.

There were two lines of old oak and maple trees, or something similar, with conifers on the fringes, forming a vanguard to a private road that turned off to the right. The driver made the turn and entered slowly beneath the trees. A sign at the narrow entrance read: "Mountain View Enterprises, Ltd., est. 2000". The logo was ringed by a horseshoe.

"_Limited"?_

The sun shone through the branches and threw a dappling effect onto the big car's paint and chrome and windshield, almost enough to blind you. I averted my eyes for a moment before a headache added to the other small complaints that were already niggling down my spine.

Then we broke out of the trees, and directly ahead of us was this beautiful old mansion. The place was constructed of wood and cement and brick and stone, and must have been at least two hundred years old. It had a portico in front, and tall pillars supporting a roof that reminded me of southern plantations in books by Margaret Mitchell and John Jakes. Mont Royal. Tara.

Huge old elms and chestnuts spread their arms out over the roof, like a grandpa hugging a

grandchild.

_You're getting maudlin again, House! Cut it out!_

The Hummer pulled up directly in front of the portico and stopped. I found that I was looking directly across a wide porch and into the area behind the big front door. I could see a number of people moving about through the shadowy interior, and a few going in from the outside and a few coming out from the inside. Standing in the foyer was a tall, thin manwith skin like copper and hair a lot like sisal hemp. He walked out onto the porch to meet the Hummer, and was (of course!) pushing a sturdy wheelchair in front of him.

_Wilson … this is your fault! Every time I get within fifty feet of you, you start giving me grief and throwing your damned weight around!!_

I couldn't help shaking my head at the irony. I'd shucked one wheelchair in New Jersey and acquired another one upon my arrival in Michigan. Not fair! I looked at this one narrowly as it came closer to where I sat sideways in the Hummer with my single sneaker parked on the curb and the other leg resting on top of it.

Half squinting, half cringing, I watched the copper-skinned guy walk up in front of me and swing the chair around. It was heavier than the one I'd used in Jersey, and I saw that its right leg rest was already partly raised. Today was not a day I could look forward to getting away with anything. Whit and the Hummer driver stood near the car's front fender, watching closely.

"Can you do this by yourself?" Whit asked.

I nodded, doing my best to curl my lip with a touch of insolence. "Yup … no problem."

Whit snorted. "I hear ya, Doc. No hero stuff, okay?"

I nodded again. He had called me 'Doc'. My anonymity was intact. "Okay."

I pulled the crutches beneath my arms and stood slowly. By the time I had my bearings, the wheelchair had moved in behind me and I settled onto the seat. The copper-skinned guy knelt and adjusted my leg on the leg rest and raised the platform part way. He looked up at me in question. I nodded at him and settled back.

While he fiddled with the mechanics of the chair and stowed the crutches on the back, he addressed me in a stage whisper: "Hi, Dr. House. I'm Jeremy Elton. I'm a nurse. My colleague and I are Dr. Wilson's caretakers. Would you like to go to him now?"

I know my mouth dropped open again … it seemed to be doing that a lot lately. I stared at him hard and caught my breath. Lowering my voice, I motioned him down in order to whisper back. "You know who I am. Of _course_ I want to go to him. Talk to me!"

"Five of us know who you really are: Whit and his driver, my colleague Shirley, Billy Travis, and me. That's all. Nobody will ever come here that you don't want to come here. Shall we go? He's waiting for you."

"Yes, of course. Let's go. He's … 'waiting'? … for me?"

Jeremy tilted his head. "Well, look at it this way: he's up in his room. And he certainly looks like he's waiting for someone. Who says it isn't you?"

Jeremy wheeled me through the mansion, past an open area with comfortable furniture, none of it institutional; thin carpets and jungle animal prints on the walls. The bank of elevators held six cars, one of them open and waiting for us. Jeremy popped us inside and the car closed and lifted.

There was no melodic "ping" when the doors opened again and the elevator disgorged us across from a large nurses' station. Jeremy waved to the two people working the desk, but kept on pushing me down one of the hallways that led toward the west side of the building. We were on carpet again, and there was no sound accompanying our passage other than the tick of the big wheels. I could hear soft strains of country music from one of the rooms we passed.

Then we slowed. Jeremy turned me to the left, careful to keep the footrest of the chair from scraping the doorway. It was a large room. Someone was in the bed, surrounded by IVs; ECG feeds … feeding tubes … a mechanical sling used for moving a patient; the usual accouterments in the room of a comatose human being. I strained to see, but someone was bent over the man, wiping his face gently with a damp cloth and crooning to him as though he were a child.

"Hey Shirl?" Jeremy called softly to the woman beside the bed, and she straightened swiftly, completely revealing the body and face of my dearest friend.

_Oh sweet Jesus … Wilson … Wilson!_

It was Wilson and it was not. He was a miracle. He really was still alive. Tom had said he was and Billy had said he was … but there was enough doubt stuck in my mind that wouldn't quite let me believe it. Not until this moment. His face was Wilson's face, and his eyes were Wilson's eyes. His hair was snow white; not a white that was laced with strands of his natural honey auburn … but fresh-snow, bleached-cotton, clouds-on-a-sunny-day … _white._

I said his name. "Wilson. Ah God … Jimmy …"

He did not acknowledge me. Of course not. I was suddenly heartsick, yearning for what used to be. He sat against a mound of pillows with his head tilted slightly back against the fluffy tops. His gaze was straight ahead and slightly elevated, as though he might be captivated by something in the far distance.

I was getting maudlin again, embarrassed and humiliated by my lack of control. Great gulping sobs rose in my throat, and my body trembled trying to contain them. Tears blurred my vision to the point of forming a watery halo around him. He appeared like the ripples that spread outward in concentric circles when a pebble drops in the water. I felt isolated and abandoned. My friend had gone away somewhere and left me behind and alone.

It was more than I could stand.

The woman who had been bending over the bed, now bent over the wheelchair and touched my shoulders very lightly with both hands. Her head bent so closely over me that I could feel her warm breath in my hair. The man knelt wordlessly on the other side and placed both hands on the armrest. They said not a word, but simply encircled me.

Jeremy reached out with his foot and gently pushed the door closed.

Privacy.

No one would see me losing it except those who belonged there. I was among friends, and they were willing to wait while my despair ran its course. I had never before experienced such gentle quietude from strangers … as this. Not ever.

_Thank you …_

It took me awhile to pull myself together, calm down and finally look at Wilson as he was now. The reality of his devastating injury washed over me with a sense of sorrow and emptiness. And, finally, truth.

I took a deep breath and straightened. My pain was waking up and reminding me of the reality of _my_ world.

I looked up at the woman who had stood behind me and enfolded me with compassionate concern. "Hi, Doc," she said. "I'm Shirley Appel. What just happened to you happened to Bill Travis the first time he saw Whitey after the accident. He locked himself in an empty room and cried. It affected him so profoundly that he's never been back. Whitey is a very special man …"

I looked into her eyes; sorrowful and brimming, lashes wet, surrounded by fogged black-rimmed glasses and frizzy red hair, mixed with strands of grey.

"Yes … he is. Thanks for being here for him. Thanks for being here for me …"

Both of them stood up again, knowing that I would be all right. They stood off to the side and watched as I gathered strength to look at James Wilson as the person he had become … exactly one year ago today.

_Hi Wilson. You knew I'd come by eventually, didn't you?_

#

227


	39. Chapter 39

"Whisper of the Wind"

Chapter 39

"Another Day, Another Dollar"

Late April 2025

Gresham:

Going to work in the Spider Banks isn't fun anymore. It's drudgery … and painful.

I'm working on the third leg now. It's about half finished. They're all terribly old manuscripts … research materials in hard copy from the 1920's and 30's … one hundred years old! Yellowed, brittle, mixed up and torn and light-damaged. And there's a lot more where they came from.

I'm having to place them in plastic sleeves and laminate them together one at a time. After that I must put some of them back together like jigsaw puzzles and separate them all by page numbers. It takes a lot of extra concentration and it's a total pain in the ass. The texts are stilted and one-dimensional, and I have a feeling that most of them are nothing other than stowed-away student research. Why in hell did the university bother keeping them?

The one good thing about it is that in giving the work all my concentration, I'm less inclined to worry about Leather and what he's doing and how he's feeling. He's been coming to work with a forbidding aura about him the past couple of days. It's almost as though he's ashamed to face me after the confrontation we had at his apartment the other week.

I wondered, after I'd left him that evening, what his thinking was when he awakened and found his place dark … and me, gone.

He never mentioned it. Never said a word. Never asked me what I'd thought after I saw that bootleg film of the long-ago conflagration on the highway. Actually, not much. What had Leather and Billy expected of me when they showed me the thing? Did they just want me to know that Wilson wasn't really dead and House wasn't really dead, but about a dozen other poor souls were? Maybe they thought they would be shutting me up, even though I hadn't enough information to piece anything together or make a big deal of it. What did they think I would do? Why were they even worried about it?

Leather was tight-lipped and stormy after that. Monday he looked like death warmed over.

This morning he directed me to the materials that needed to be worked on first and second and third … all that stuff. Everything he said, I had already planned to take care of. I think he was just mouthing a bunch of empty words so there wouldn't be complete stone cold silence between us.

Fine!

He seems shaky and his eyes are all over the place. He won't meet my gaze, and I thought at first that maybe he'd been drinking. But I discarded that idea right away. He propped himself in the middle of the room and pointed to boxes and cartons with his cane. Then he stood back, watching angrily as I lugged them onto the dolly.

At least he'd found the damned cane and wasn't trying to walk around without it.

I answered him in monosyllables and pushed the dolly out the door to put as much distance between us as possible. While I settled in at the main worktable later on, he made himself scarce in the Spider Banks somewhere. I could hear him moving around back there. Every painful step he took echoed like marbles-in-a-bathtub through the corridors.

The hell with him! Let him act like a spoiled schoolboy. See if I give a shit!

After awhile it got deathly quiet.

I was still sitting there, hunched over the crumbling old papers, my mind wandering over everything except what I was doing.

That's when I finally lost control. I found that my tears were running and my nose was running and the laminate on the table was puddling up beneath my fingers. I dropped my face into the crook of my arm and just left all that backed-up misery come pouring out any way it wanted. I don't like to bawl. To do so over a situation this far beyond my control had always been a sign of weakness to me. Now I had to rethink that, because the situation was controlling me. And the reality of my weakness in this matter had me by the throat!

This constant heartache was not what I'd come here for. I came here to train to be a doctor, not to act like a lovesick kid caught up between "Daddy" images and knights in shining armour. I was good at the doctor thing. I was a fast learner and was currently head-and-shoulders above my peers in hands-on practice. I enjoyed the study and the research and dealing with real live patients. I was easily capable of handling the work and the pressure, and the constant demands for excellence without screwups.

It wasn't that.

It was this crippled old man with the failing body, relentless pride, unwavering dignity and deeply buried sensitivity locked away so no one knew. Or at least that he _thought_ no one knew …

But the more he tried to keep his ache bottled up inside, the more it spilled over where anyone looking in the right direction could readily see. I guess I was just looking in the right direction, because I recognized some of his pain as my own.

My problem was … I _did_ give a shit. He'd hit me in the right place at the right time and with the right amount of momentum. Now, here we were … both of us unable to back off … locked into an impossible emotional situation that held us in a grip of iron.

_Damn!_

I sat up, finally, and dug for a paper towel to wipe the tears and sweat and snot off my face. At last I pulled myself together. Strangely, I felt a little better for having let go of the built-up tension and the useless feelings of "poor me!" I smoothed my clothes, mopped up the table and set the pile of papers aside. I took a deep breath and let it out

with a sigh.

I sat still, listening.

The silence, echoing around me, was now turning into something as oppressive as a preternatural entity. Gradually it got all my attention. There was nothing coming through from the Banks. No churning air returns, no hum from the dehumidifiers, no creaking sighs from the long empty corridors.

Nothing.

Individual hairs stood up on my arms. My body became one gigantic ear. Every tiny nerve ending honed itself to a fine edge, like a startled deer frozen in place in a hunter's sights.

Leather had not left. The elevator had not run. He was still back there somewhere, but oddly quiet. Leather was _never_ quiet. Even at rest, he jittered. Tapped his fingers on anything that would emit some kind of sound. Drummed a cadence on a hardcover book or some other solid surface. Clicked a ballpoint pen, seesawed a pencil between thumb and forefinger upon a blotter, twirled his damned cane until it agitated the air around it. Or he would pace: … "step-ka-tak-_tunk_ … step-ka-tak-_tunk_ …" the familiar tattoo of good-foot-bad-foot-cane.

Nothing but silence.

_Is he all right?_

I pushed myself to my feet and stood listening again; perhaps I'd been wrong. There had to be _some_ kind of sound from back there …

Nothing but silence. And more silence.

Worried, I started back through the third leg … toward the storage room filled with old cartons at the other end.

At the doorway I paused, then opened the door. The lights were out and I could see nothing. After being exposed to the lights along the corridor, I was completely blind, except for the blue and yellow spots that exploded through my brain in afterimage.

"Leather? Are you in here?"

The pie-shaped area of dim light that widened across the room beyond the open door began to take shape as my vision adjusted to the differences in sensitivity. There were only the cardboard cartons piled one on top of another in haphazard disarray along the rear wall.

"Leather? Where are you? Are you okay?"

"No ..."

It was little more than a croak. Like he'd been breathing through his mouth and hadn't spoken for a long time. I heard him clear his throat instinctively.

Also instinctively, I reached to the inside wall and snapped on the lights.

A quick movement to my right made me flinch in alarm. He'd thrown up his arm to cover his eyes. "Turn off the fuckin' lights, Gresham!" He growled. "What the hell do you want?"

For an instant of annoyance, I wondered why I'd even bothered. He needed me like he needed diarrhea. I didn't answer, just reached up to turn off the lights again, back away and get the hell out of here. He'd been right in the first place; this was never going to work … not now, not ever. Not in a million years.

"Gresham …wait!"

I froze with my arm in midair. _"What!"_

"I'm sorry. I just … I'm sorry for so damned many things I can't count 'em up on all my fingers and all my toes. Come over here and find a place to plop down." His face was so filled with sorrow and pain that it was palpable.

He was sitting on a stack of lumpy cardboard boxes with his back against the wall. His jacket was bunched up beneath his bum leg on another stack of boxes, and he looked as though he were trying to make himself uncomfortable on purpose. The boxes were dented and bowed by the contours of his body, but their corners still jabbed upward like stone battlements.

He saw me looking him over as I walked across and found a place to his right on another stack. The hardness in the grey, smoky eyes softened slightly and began to lighten to blue again.

Unable to keep my hands to myself, I reached across the short space and placed my warm palm on his cold hand. "What's wrong, Leather? Can I help? You look like you just lost your last friend …"

Tears pooled wetly in his lower lids as though someone had turned on a fire hose directly behind them. He'd been trying to look me in the eyes, but my careless words caused his gaze to turn away in the opposite direction.

And then I knew.

"I did," he said softly. "He died in my arms Saturday night."

It was spoken almost as a prayer.

There were no more words.

No adequate condolances to convey our mutual regret, or the shared sadness of that poignant revelation. No way to further acknowledge the profound loss that Leather had been carrying alone for two days.

Apologies now were as inadequate as smoke on the wind, so I didn't make any. I moved over beside him and encircled his thin shoulders as best I could with both arms. The two of us just leaned there together, unmoving.

I let my head lay on his shoulder with my face upturned far enough to place a light kiss on his cheek. I tangled my fingers in the wiry silver hair behind his left ear. His sorrow was overpowering him, and his pain at the loss of Wilson a staggering blow to what was left of his meagre strength.

I did nothing except sit against his side as close as I could get, amazed that he allowed it without trying to pull away. I was slowly coming to realize how little of that feisty, nonconformist spirit remained within him. Perhaps he was right when he'd told me that his time was running out …

The next thing I remember is the elevator activating; the car descending from the library above. It hit bottom with the usual clang and the thump of the doors coming open.

_What the … ?_

Then the voice. Unmistakable.

"Anybody home?"

Billy Travis.

We didn't have to call out to him. He was already on his way back to us. Obviously he knew where we'd been working.

Leather touched my hair lightly, struggling to sit up straighter and suggested that I back off a few paces. "He already thinks I'm taking advantage of you," he said. "No use perpetuating the suspicion."

I nodded agreement, got up and moved back to my original butt-flattened cardboard box.

"Taking advantage of me?"

Leather shook his head. "I'll tell you about it later. He just wants to talk to me about Wilson's burial …"

Billy stepped around the doorframe at that moment, eyes flicking back and forth between us. "It's done," he said.

Leather nodded once. His eyes slid to the side and his expression drew together in an effort at blandness. "Mountain View?"

"Yeah," Billy said. "In the glen. Back where you said. Yesterday afternoon. Tom didn't show, so Whit and his staff made the arrangements. Jewish tradition. Rabbi in attendance. We wore torn black ribbons. Short and simple ceremony. You okay with that?"

Leather nodded again. "Yeah. Thanks. You?"

"Yeah. Shirley and Jeremy sat shemira Sunday night. Jeremy washed him and dressed him in Tachrichim and his body was placed in a plain pine box. There was only the Rabbi, Whit, me, Shirley and Jeremy. As you suggested, his grave has only a footstone with the Star of David."

Again, Leather merely nodded.

I didn't understand half of what they were talking about. It sounded as though all the end-of-life arrangements for Dr. Wilson had been made long ago. I knew Billy could not bring himself to visit Dr. Wilson in his vegetative state. Since he had died in Leather's arms, it also stood to reason that the trauma it caused Leather had forced him to not attend the burial.

It even made sense in a perverse kind of way. It was not for me to question. And I didn't.

Billy's attention wavered between Leather and me for a moment, then came back and settled on me. I was sitting on the cardboard box with my head down and my hands laced between my knees. I felt, rather than saw, his gaze upon me.

"He told you?" Billy asked.

I nodded. "Yeah."

"I didn't tell her everything," Leather interrupted harshly. "I didn't tell her I'm a freakin' coward who didn't even have the guts to attend the funeral of his best friend. Or that his best friend was lucid when he died … after spending seventeen years with his brain in a vacuum …"

That was when he told me how it had been. He told me about the gut-wrenching agony of having James Wilson speak his name … and then quietly draw his last breath with a smile on his face.

That was a vision that was far beyond my comprehension.

Billy and I took Leather home. We walked with him out to the elevator. We rode up to ground level and left through the outside door. It was dark. Billy waited behind the metal canopy with this dearest burden, while I ran across to the parking lot and brought back his car.

Billy walked him into his apartment and I brought his backpack. We settled him on his worn old couch with pillows behind his back and beneath his leg. We rid him of jacket and sneakers and covered him to the waist with that old brown blanket. We gave him his "phony Vicodin", as he liked to call it, and made him comfortable as possible. He did not speak further, but buried his face in the back of the couch and fell asleep quickly.

Billy and I went to the kitchen to make supper. Something simple.

As he worked, Billy looked at me with an expression of sorrow on his dark face. "You know he's free to let himself die now. He's been holding on because of Jimmy. I'm so sorry you had to fall into all this …"

"I'm not," I said. "I wouldn't have missed this experience for anything in the world. "Besides, he's not going to die, Billy. You forgot about one thing."

"What?"

"Me."

I ignored the pitying look he turned in my direction …

#

235


	40. Chapter 40

"Whisper of the Wind"

Chapter 40

"Pillar of Iron"

June 2009

Whitney Travis:

My household staff was a little puzzled when I asked them to put someone in "non-patient" status in a small room on the ground floor. Especially after they got a good look at Gregg's depleted condition. However, they were all skilled professionals and knew they were working at an institution that stressed privacy. These are extraordinary people, and probably already had their own ideas about things. If they were consumed with curiosity, they did not voice it. At least not to me. They just prepared the room with its handicap bath to my specifications and withdrew when the job was finished.

Another reason I wanted him quartered down there was because the electronics and technical laboratory was one floor down, in the basement, and the elevator was directly across from that room. We would not have to parade his wheelchair through the halls when we took him down to work on the leg brace. That way, families of other patients, who were in and out at all hours, would not embarrass him with their staring.

Gregg told me he was working on plans to leave New Jersey for good and move somewhere close to Mountain View where he'd be able to spend whatever time he could with Whitey. He mentioned later that he'd also decided to join Whitey in becoming "conveniently dead". I agreed that his efforts to recover his mobility were best accomplished in private, rather than under scrutiny from colleagues and other curiosity seekers. In that regard, I had a few ideas, and someone in mind to talk to discreetly about that.

Gregg was a very private man; perceptive, alert, and way beyond intelligent. I'd noticed that about him right away, and decided all his associations, along with his very few friendships, were chosen with guarded care. I admired everything that he was, and everything that he stood for. My brother Billy thought the sun rose and set with him. Gregg was a lot like me, although a lot more open than me. He thrust his "miserability" right out front where everyone could bump into it. People backed off from his confrontational nature quickly. I was a little more … well … _sneaky_ … than him.

At any rate, I assured him that he would have the entire weekend to be with Whitey. Monday we would get down to the serious business of designing a brace for his leg and manipulating that Achilles tendon to the point where he could control the foot again. He was obviously scared of it because he had no idea what it would entail, and was too wrapped up in seeing James Wilson again to ask questions. I could see the trepidation in his eyes. He'd had enough pain in his lifetime for three men his size.

I assured him there was a way to circumvent the pain, but I'm sure he thought I was totally full of shit.

Well, he would soon see …

Gregg:

I stayed with Wilson all weekend; close to losing my composure so many times that I was totally pissed off at my lack of control. I had always prided myself in my ability to manage a situation by holding it at arms' length with a smartass remark, or pretending I didn't give a crap. But you couldn't do that with Wilson. Even with all the personality of a stalk of celery, his presence dominated the room.

Wilson didn't fit into any of the usual categories. I'd grown too accustomed to his quick smile, that quicksilver wit, and his absolute refusal to be fooled by my calculated manipulations to get over on him. I knew when we first met that he was not a dummy. He was just a pushover.

Now, I was thinking, "shell-shock" when I looked at him: thousand-yard stare and nothing to say. Surrounded by bleeping monitors and pumped full of drugs that would choke an elephant. God! It was eerie.

So I made a game of it and carried both sides of the "conversation":

"Yeah, Wilson, I remember … you thought the nerves in my leg might be regenerating, so you put me in the damned MRI. But they weren't! They were the same as they were the last time you hustled me in there. So then you figured it was because I was bummed over giving Stacy her walking papers, and the pain was psychosomatic. Great! Score one for you. But it was still _pain,_ and I was barely able to walk. You were mad at me for weeks after I whacked you in the shins with that old metal cane.

"Dammit … you aint God! You don't sound like God, and you sure don't look like God. But I gotta admit, you did a passable imitation."

"Your stethoscope was on the doorknob, House. You told me never to come in when the stethoscope was on the doorknob … you said it meant you were having sex. I was out here for hours!"

"Ya don't always need more than one person to have sex, Wilson. I don't know what you're so pissed off about … it's not _that_ late …"

"_I was getting hungry!"_

"Well, you have your car keys, don't you?"

"_House, you sabotaged my relationship with Amber!"_

"No I didn't. It was _my _pants she was trying to get into … not yours … from the first day she laid eyes on me."

"I think that was the other way around …"

"No it wasn't! She wanted to have sex with me. And she wanted to see my leg. I let her get away with one of them ..."

"_You grossed her out on purpose??"_

"Yeah … probably. She would have killed you!"

"And I'm supposed to thank you for that??"

"I thought I was being extremely logical about the whole thing …"

The stories ran out after awhile, but the words I spoke brought no reaction, and drove another one of those little map pins into my brain that had another little note attached to it: "Nobody Home." I finally got the idea. Wilson had gone away from me forever and left no forwarding address. I was alone. Truly alone.

Except for his empty shell …

My brain nagged me and nagged me about the finality of the situation … but my stubborn ego wouldn't let go of it. I wanted Wilson back, and I just couldn't force myself to not wish for it to be otherwise.

Sunday morning I asked for a small piano to be placed in his room. I would pay for it, and for the freight charges and someone to deliver it. Maybe some of the things I couldn't say to Wilson from my heart would pass through my fingers to the keyboard. He used to like sitting around my place in Jersey, listening to the blues, or a round of honkey tonk when we were both blitzed out of our skulls on a Saturday night …

The piano arrived Sunday evening. Like magic. A beautiful little antique Baldwin spinet. Whit's influence, no doubt. And a heaping pile of his money. I was quickly learning that he was a powerful man, but I had no clue where all that power came from. It was none of my business. If he ever wanted me to know, he'd tell me. He was a pretty decent guy.

Whit wouldn't take my offer of payment for the piano. So I wrote a check for five grand to their operating fund.

More than one way to skin a cat.

I sat at that responsive little instrument for the next three hours and played one number after another … just stuff that passed through my mind at random … and some of the tunes Wilson had always liked.

"Wunderbar", "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes", "Stardust", "Wind Beneath My Wings", John Denver's "Ponies".

When finally I was so tired and sore that I couldn't play any longer, I shifted and looked over at Wilson … "Whitey" … and saw that he was peacefully asleep.

A group of people two-deep were lined up near the doorway, listening.

Shirley Appel and Jeremy Elton had let them in. And now they were in the process of quietly shooing them back out. Everyone thanked me for the impromptu concert. Shirley and Jeremy strongly suggested that I go down to my reserved room and allow the attendants down there to assist me into the shower, allow someone to give me a massage and help me get ready for bed.

I was ready to assure them in no uncertain terms that I needed no help …

And they nodded in ascent, but at the same time reminded me that tomorrow was the day when I would be fitted with a most revolutionary leg brace … and it was important that I receive the proper assistance and the proper rest to insure that I be ready.

How the hell could I argue with that when it was presented so persuasively and so nicely and so politely? I consented, of course … even said: "thank you" … and: "yes, I'll do that" … while at the same time I was pretty damned sure I was being hustled!

Six o'clock Monday morning, one of the most beautiful women I'd ever seen, turned up the lights in my room, and whispered: "Happy morning, Leather. It time for team get you ready go downstairs, your date with orthopedic and tech team and electric people. Up for this?" She sounded a lot like Whit's driver.

She was about four feet six and spoke like a two-year-old. Her skin was honey brown, her hair dark brown silk, her eyes black as the buttons on my peacoat. Her smile made my heart beat a lot faster than it was supposed to … and when I asked, she said she was from Jamaica. "Jamaica" Jamaica? Jamaica, Long Island? She told me her name was Naya Kurovo. I felt a chill run down my spine and did not know why.

I shook my head in a moment of puzzlement. She was wearing jeans and a bright red tee shirt. Damn! Without exception, everybody here dresses the same way I do!

Except for the patients … who all dressed like … patients!

We went down in the elevator. I'd been given black coffee and whole-wheat toast. Great fiber content, but it tasted like cardboard and dishwater. Bitter. They were so freakin' _nice _about it! They said I would be given better fare when the brace fitting was completed and I had checked out how it felt, how it worked, and whether I could live with it for a year or so.

I swallowed the lump of worry in my throat. _A YEAR?? _When in hell would I _ever_ be able to walk again? How would this brace-thing straighten my foot and allow me to put weight on it? They would have to break the laws of physics! For all my years in diagnostics, and my long impeccable record of wins over losses, I was at a definite loss here as to how they would be able to figure this thing out. I was _way_ beyond understanding. I was in The Twilight Zone of wild speculation.

The room in the basement was stainless steel and porcelain. Everything was white or silver or grey-on-grey. Naya Kurovo returned to my side. Someone handed her a sterile white coverall, which she donned with quiet grace, and it turned her into an instant alien. I was getting a little groggy. There were about five people present, all gowned and gloved and androgynous and alien-looking and ready for business. I knew what they were going to do, but not how they were going to do it, or what I'd end up with when they finished. Was I dreaming? Or had I been abducted by little green men in a UFO?

Two big guys in white scrubs moved toward me, and I knew that they were going to lift me. They said their names were "Ben" and ?? I didn't get the second one. "Not-Ben"?

A large gurney moved in my direction, and the man pushing, halted it close by and put on the brakes. This, I figured was the "Alter of Human Sacrifice" … or whatever they were calling it these days. Ben and his friend, not-Ben, lifted me as though I were a match stick, and settled me onto the gurney. They stripped off my scrub pants and covered me with a light blanket. From the opposite direction, someone else was approaching with a portable operating lamp. The damned thing was as big as a beach umbrella. I was impressed. Naya placed her hand on my forearm and looked down at me with a smile.

I felt like I was suddenly under the spell of T'Pring, the Seductress of all Vulcan.

Whit Travis finally joined us at 6:30. He was stuffed into white scrubs and a white skullcap. He was cloth-bootied and rubber gloved and looked like something fresh off a Romulan warship. He stood and grinned down at me for a moment, and the white light glinted off his glasses. At least _he_ still looked somewhat human! He then pulled the cart that trailed behind him around where I could see everything that was on it.

_What the…?_

I knew what titanium was. I'd seen it before. I knew what it could do, and I understood the many medical applications for which it could be utilized. Suddenly all my heebie-jeebies dissipated. All the scenarios I'd been conjuring up within my fertile science- fiction imagination flew off into the ether, and I relaxed. This was a UFO thingamabob I could live with.

Whit saw the change, and underneath his sterile mask, he guffawed and winked. I gave him a dirty look that turned into a glare, and rolled my eyes.

Ben and not-Ben beside him smiled as though they had _not quite_ got the joke. I was introduced to them as "Leather". They and I nodded greetings. Again. Neither of them looked like doctors. They looked like heavy equipment operators. Whit watched and smiled another nasty smile, and I guess he knew pretty much what I was thinking.

"They know what they're doing," he finally said.

One of the big guys moved close to my leg with calipers and a laser scanning FaroArm device, and I flinched. "Always thought those things were for use in industry …"

"Be easy now," not-Ben assured me. "They are. We adapt. Accurate down to tiny inch-parts. Have to get precise measures here. You can be still, maybe? Okay?"

I nodded and watched as he worked, beginning to zone out a little. Naya squeezed my forearm, and for a moment I fantasized her squeezing very gently somewhere else …

My damaged foot had only in-and-out sensation along the plantar fascia, and it was like being tickled with feathers as he ran the laser along its length. I held still only with effort. Ben made the same precise measurements all the way up and down the length of my leg, hip to calcaneus. Every completed measurement brought a beep from the tiny instrument he held in his opposite hand. I had never seen any electronic calculator this tiny, and I wondered about it. More science fiction paraphernalia …

Ben saw me looking and grinned at my expression. "Make new," he offered by way of explanation. "Whit's mind-find. This is first time we do for a human."

A 'human'? WHAT …??

"What's it called?"

"'Zai-Zo'," Whit said with a guarded expression. "You'll be hearing a lot more about it in a few years."

_Aha! Your brother already swiped one from you a year ago …_

"Say-So? Really?"

Just like the thing I got from Billy and called off the cops with …

"Close enough … How is your leg? Any extra pain? Sometimes the Faro-Arm electronics leave some static residue that's bothersome."

"It hurts," I told him. "It always hurts. Not significantly more or significantly less.

But the day is still young." I noticed that he'd changed the subject with dispatch.

Ben placed a large paw on my shoulder in reassurance, but I'm not sure I was reassured. "You rest sometimes," he said, "We go back in room. Work on brace. We see you in much little time. Okay?"

I nodded. "Okay." Strangely, I found myself catching on fast to their Jingle-Jangle speech patterns.

_Titanium electronic brace?_

Just that quick, I was out like a light. As though they had timed it down to the second.

_What the hell did you put in that cof-fe-e …?_

When I woke up, Whit was sitting on a stainless steel stool with the stainless steel cart still beside him. On the cart were tiny, thin shafts of tubular titanium rods with what looked like miniscule electronic connections. He was working with a pile of spidery black netting held together with soft metallic straps, and those were somehow tied into a pile of stainless steel connections I did not recognize. I saw a jumble of hair-thin wires hooked up to miniscule conductor junction boxes in such miniature proportions that they closely resembled toys for small children. Whit appeared to be used to working with the stuff. Even sterile-gloved, his hand dexterity was astounding.

I was expecting some sort of innovative leg brace. What I saw instead was a pile of super-expensive junk.

"What the hell _is_ this stuff?"

"Welcome back, Sleeping Beauty," Whit teased. "I think I've just been insulted! This, my friend, is that wonderful piece of techno-magic that's going to get your leg working again."

I made a similarly insulted face and squinted hard at the heap of little black threads on the stainless steel cart.

"All I can see is a bunch of titanium pickup sticks, a pile of black thread and a giant hairball … so would you mind telling me _where _the hell is this marvelous brace??"

_# _

243


	41. Chapter 41

"Whisper of the Wind"

Chapter 41

"The Big Connection"

June 2009

Mountain View

Leather:

I was flat on my back on the gurney. No pillow.

_Don't distort the images!_

They couldn't prop up my leg. Same reason.

My right arm kept going to sleep. I kept clenching and unclenching my fist, but they asked me not to do that. Naya was still at my side, and she told me, in some kind of goofy "Yoda" language, to relax my arm … let it go limp. Which I did. Then she palpated the muscles of my forearm, flexed and unflexed my elbow. Slow back-and-forth movement that sent pleasant sensations all the way to my shoulder. She had a grip like steel.

_Owwww …_

She explained … and I really had to concentrate to get this … that the recently healed bones and muscles in the arm were not used to all the abrupt changes in inclination … _No shit!_ … which was why I kept clenching and unclenching the fingers in an effort to maintain sensation.

The way she spoke, and the way I had to unscramble her words in my head to make sense of it was a little confusing, but it did more to alleviate the discomfort than any application of moist heat could have done after hours of ministrations. For that reason alone, I let her yak on.

Did she know I was a doctor?

Probably not. I didn't bother to tell her; just caressed her sweet face with my eyes, which she pretended not to notice. In my peripheral vision I watched Whit Travis, off to one side, meticulously fashioning a bird-nest looking thing out of handfuls of the spider-web black netting. He wasn't saying a word, but beneath the sterile mask I could tell he was laughing his fat black ass off. I got the distinct idea that he was having a great time at my expense because there was a huge cosmic joke being perpetuated here, and I just wasn't getting it. I frowned at him and looked away, wondering what the fuck was going on.

I never did get to experience any further pleasurable sensations after that, because my leg was beginning to hurt like royal hell. It didn't like where it was, as the firm, meticulous calibrations and precise measurements continued, and they had to move my foot around in places it would rather not be. The pain intensified the further they went, and soon I was getting antsy. I found that it was impossible to lie still.

Ben noticed first that I was increasingly jittery. "Ho, Butt!" he said, looking down at the tenseness in my face and taking note that my forehead was damp and shiny with rivulets of greasy perspiration. "You need maybe breather?"

I nodded and swallowed hard. "Oh yeah … I need maybe meds … maybe a shot of something if this is going to go on much longer …"

They produced a tiny instrument with something that looked like a suction cup on one end. Ben pressed it to my skin and squeezed gently. The worst of the pain backed off immediately, and when I looked around, Naya was holding a cold cloth to my forehead and holding my hand.

.

"Thanks," I said. "What the hell was that?"

She smiled and shushed me with a finger to her lips, and resumed massage of my wrist. "You not could pronounce …"

I sighed and closed my eyes and left her to it. At the same time, I thought: Jesus! This place is nuts … and this broad has the strongest fingers in the freakin' universe!

A minute later, all the manipulations of my leg ceased. I opened my eyes and looked around. Ben and not-Ben were taking off their sterile wraps and dumping them in a cloth laundry bag on wheels. Not surprisingly, they were wearing jean shorts and tee shirts. They had the calipers and the expensive FaroArm unit on one stainless steel tray, and not-Ben was reaching for the other tray on the cart by Whit's side.

"What happens now?" I asked.

"Now …" he told me, "boys go in lab and making brace. It take couple hours. Be easy."

I nodded. More Pidgin English. I was familiar with more than a few language bases, but this stuff sounded kind of primitive. I was getting hungry too. When was lunch?

Finally free of pain, my mind was turning quickly to my stomach. Strange. I didn't usually get this hungry. I flexed my arm to be rid of the effects of "little iron-fingers", and watched Whit as he gathered up piles of the black threads and placed them on one of the trays. Across from them, lengths of thin, tubular titanium and tiny electronic conductors lay waiting. Pure copper electrical conductors? Not sure.

Ben and not-Ben each took a tray and walked across the room where a door opened into some kind of deep, black expanse … I didn't know what.

Whit tossed me my scrub pants and helped me get into them. My leg still felt okay, but was being bitchy when I tried to manipulate it. He also assisted me back into the wheelchair. "What's going on now?" I asked.

"Aren't you hungry?"

I glared up at him. "Nahh … I don't usually eat anything on Mondays ..."

He shook his head in grinning exasperation and got behind me to push. "Smartass! Let's go up to the dining room for some chow." He pulled that little tiny gizmo out of his pocket that looked like the Colonel's Zippo lighter, and I had another flashback about the thing in the car … that I'd lost in the accident.

"Got room for two more for lunch, Chet?"

I heard: "Bring it on, Whit!." And we were on our way upstairs.

It was two o'clock in the afternoon when we got back to the tech lab. Whit and I had indulged ourselves with spaghetti and meatballs, although I filled up a lot faster than he did. He was avoiding the two of us being scrutinized by other patients and their families and caregivers. Protecting my anonymity, no doubt, but no one took notice other than to nod politely. I was just that crippled old fart who played piano down at the end of the third-floor hallway.

Ben and not-Ben were there to meet us as we came off the elevator, and they hustled my butt back onto the gurney.

Naya returned shortly after that, pushing a wheeled table in front of her. I was mostly flat on my back again, but at least this time she let me place a pillow beneath my head. I was finally able to see what the hell they were doing down there with my leg and foot.

They pulled the scrub pants back off me again, and for the first time I could see what they were preparing to work on as I laid there.

Slender lengths of titanium were now being assembled into a spidery device that bore an incredible exactness to the contours of my leg, from hip to foot. It was jointed at knee and ankle, and tiny flat circles of copper electrical sensors were being attached to what was probably some kind of hinges. I could see lengths of electrical wiring, thinner even, than the other tiny wire, disappearing into the hollow shafts and adhering, I don't know how, to the sensor-conductors that touched my skin lightly.

Ben and not-Ben worked quickly, efficiently and painlessly with the assembly, and I could barely feel the light touch of the metal. It was not uncomfortable; it was just there.

Behind the table, Whit Travis worked with the spider-web netting, which almost seemed to fashion itself together in sections that secured the bracing metal close against my leg. As they manipulated it, I could feel it pulling, stretching, not unlike the way a woman's nylon stocking pulls and stretches, but without the annoyance of the tiny, close-woven "yank-out-all-the-tiny-leg-hairs" irritation.

Fishnet stockings! I thought. How freakin' sexy!

Then it was finished. There was no rigidity, no discomfort. No grinding at the bones or muscles to haul them painfully into line. What was I missing here? A doctor such as myself should certainly be aware of advances in medical technology as revolutionary as this one … but I had never seen or heard of anything like it. The best, however, was still to come!

_Holy Shit! This is unreal!_

I felt Naya's hands slide beneath my shoulders, urging me to sit up. Ben and not-Ben were beside my feet, sliding one white sneaker gently onto my good foot, tying it, and then s-l-o-w-l-y easing my legs over the edge of the gurney as I lifted myself upright.

The brace bent fluidly at the knee. Titanium shafts adhered to the exact contours of my leg like a second skin, and the netting absorbed anything that might induce the slightest shock or jarring. There was none. My uncooperative foot, however, still dangled uselessly, toes dragging the floor. Even so, this much was still astounding.

"Wow!"

Naya and Whit and the other two were smiling. Evidently there was more to come.

Across the room, that mysterious door to the Twilight Zone opened and closed. Toward us walked a tall, stick-thin blonde woman in green scrubs. In her hands was the strangest pair of crutches I had ever seen. They were made of a pewter-looking alloy, and each one was fashioned of a single tubular unit. They resembled slightly elongated configurations of the letter "S". Hand rests and underarm cushions were sturdy grey pads-over-metal that extended from the smooth lengths of shaft without welds or seams. The woman, Landra, handed them to me without a word, and stood back, watching.

I turned them in my hands. The metal was slightly warm. "Now what?" I asked no one in particular.

"Now … you walk!" Whit told me as though it was gonna be the simplest thing in the world. He gestured to Ben and not-Ben, whose name I finally learned, was "Aal". Even Ben's name was actually "Bem"... I'd been hearing it wrong. Both of them flanked me again, and then supported my upper arms and assisted me to hop forward on my good foot.

The bad one dragged. Nothing new. I felt somewhat like an idiot, standing there in nothing but my underwear and tee shirt. And one frickin'shoe.

Landra positioned the odd-looking crutches beneath my arms, and immediately they felt as though they had been made for me.

_Dumb-ass thinking, old man … they were!_

I equalized my weight and discovered that the crutches gave beneath me a fraction of an inch, cushioning the load and easing away the feeling of stiff and ungainly contact with the floor.

_Whoa Nellie!_

Whit Travis reached down and lightly touched something on the brace close to my knee.

My jaw dropped. I gasped. Couldn't help it.

These guys were turning me into a damned Robot! I had the odd sensation of a faint hum and servos engaging … feeling my leg stiffen a little as it bent slowly at the knee, more and more, and then tightening gradually until my foot was lifted very gently off the floor. It felt as though it was floating on air. Other servos at my ankle engaged, and I could also feel my foot straightening laterally, moving in line with the tibia. It hurt like holy hell for a moment. Then it eased. I stood with eyes bulging … jaw still unhinged. The netting and the short titanium rods that paralleled my foot on both sides drew up until the netting tightened minutely.

Suddenly, I _got_ it. I understood. How could I have been so thick? This was _way_ beyond cool. _Way _beyond any stretch of imagination. This was somewhere within the realm of Bones McCoy and sick bay on the _Enterprise_ …

In tiny increments, perhaps millimeters a day … or a week … or a month … my Achilles tendon would stretch. In time I would have my mobility back, and I would walk again.

I would go to Whitey's room and dance a jig beside his bed. He would smile and applaud …

I looked at the silent faces of the people surrounding me. Questions, questions!

In that instant I knew that this place was where I belonged. The place where I would return someday to live … even until the end of my time on Earth …

Even then, something kept telling me there was more.

A _lot_ more!

And I was about to step over the threshold where no man (in his right mind) had gone before.

_Gene Roddenberry, you were right all along …_ _damn you!_

#

248


	42. Chapter 42

"Whisper of the Wind"

Chapter 42

"Home Fires Burning"

Late May, 2025

Gresham:

I have no idea why, but I just can't stay away from him. Can't let him alone, can't mind my own business. He _is_ my business; my greatest concern, my biggest worry. He's like a magnet, drawing a paper clip inexplicably across a counter until finally there is contact. Once there is contact, the paper clip never lets go until it is pulled away forcibly. I'm the paper clip, he's the magnet. And things seem to be working out according to some stupid master plan.

He doesn't want me. He's made it clear often enough. To him, I'm a kid, and his deeply ingrained principles remind him constantly that any man with even a shred of honor does nothing that will hurt a kid!

The timing is bad. I'm too young; he's too old. Yet here I am … like that paper clip … drawing inexplicably closer and closer. Drawn like a moth to a flame. I can't stay away from him!

He's grieving. He has lost the dearest thing in his life, and it is consuming him from the inside out. He sits in corners, chin resting on the head of his cane, or on clasped hands. He plays sad music on his Zai-Zo … or his piano … day in and day out.

He can't let Wilson go … and I can't let _him_ go. Wouldn't a psychologist love to get his hands on that one?

I hold my position as head of my class because I am relentless in my studies. I pour over the books at night and I'm far ahead of my group when it comes to differential diagnosis. My work, deep in the Spider Banks, has given me extra impetus as I research historical breakthroughs from cases recorded as far back as two hundred and fifty years.

I am sometimes conscious of envious glances and callous remarks from others who are probably wondering if I am cheating. They suspect I have a Zai-Zo implant or an imbedded Zaivonite Sand Crystal … and I am not even sure what that means. I didn't know that was possible.

My success does not stem from blind ambition, but from efforts at distraction while I try not to linger on my obsession with Leather.

Gregory House.

None of my classmates and none of the faculty know who their colleague and faculty advisor really is … or that he is a man supposedly dead for many years.

Billy has urged "Leather" to bring it out into the open and allow the world to rediscover his actual identity, celebrate his life and get to acknowledge the hundreds of lives he saved in his long and storied career.

He scoffs, saying that it's best that he die in obscurity. Nothing revealed now would benefit either him or the memory of James Wilson after this long a time. If he spills the beans, some curious moron could open up Pandora's Box all over again and destroy seventeen years of breakthrough work which would not have been possible without the benefit that came from James Wilson's loss of his cognitive powers.

The first time he said that, I was puzzled beyond measure. I asked what possible benefit could have come from that. He told me that it stemmed from a case he'd had many years before, a short time after he'd returned to work after his leg infarction. It concerned a poignant argument he'd once had with a dying patient.

"_You can live with dignity. You can't die with it!"_

But he'd been wrong, he said. James Wilson had died with a dignity such as he'd never in his life experienced before. He'd just had to survive long enough to witness it …

Then he clammed up and wouldn't say anything else.

Everybody lies …

Two days later, Leather didn't show up for work again. Nor had he showed up at his office during the day. Neither Billy, nor anyone else had seen him.

After work I went to his apartment.

A dim light flickered in the window. Probably the television.

I knocked.

He did not yell out a command to enter, so I knocked again.

When he finally appeared at the door to open it, I stared at him in horror. His eyes were bloodshot, his hair a pile of barbed wire. He wore a stained tee shirt and drooping scrub pants. He was in his bare feet, and his hand on the cane shook like a man with palsy.

He was drunk and angry and pathetic. I took him into my embrace and just held him. He said nothing. Arms stiff at his sides, he did not even acknowledge me.

"Oh Leather, what have you done?"

He reared back and laughed riotously. Diabolically.

"Done? Why, my darling … I just spent the entire day celebrating a death sentence."

That was the night it all came out.

He'd been to his doctors the day before. All his transplanted organs were trying to reject. His leg was going downhill fast. He was on strong medication, and I learned that it included the pills I'd seen him with one night, but couldn't identify.

I guided him very slowly back to his bedroom and helped him onto the bed. He said nothing. Thankfully, the apartment was warm, the lights low.

He remained quiet as, gently, I removed his clothing. He simply laid there, this emaciated husk of a man. He watched me, stony faced, but did not protest as I pulled down his boxer briefs and laid all his scars, his long-abused body, bare.

Somehow I found the strength to keep it professional. I brought a basin of warm water from the bath and sponged him very gently with it. His fists were clenched, but otherwise he made no protest. This was simply how it was … and would be. I gave him his meds and he took them. I hoped he would not be sick. His body could not afford to dehydrate, or sustain the spasms.

I wondered if I possessed the skills to get him through the night. I hated to move him.

I dressed him in the oldest, softest sweat suit I could find, and for a while he dozed. The effects of the alcohol were wearing off. I pulled off my shoes and climbed onto the bed at his side and took him into my arms.

The touch of my hands startled him and his body lurched away from me at the contact. Then he turned and stared into my face, almost as though he were seeing it for the first time. I was wary, wondering what might be coming, but I could not look away.

"Leather?"

"Don't call me that! It's only a fucking hiding place from what I really am."

"What should I call you? You don't seem to be happy with 'Gregg' either …"

"Sorry, Gresham. I'm so sick of this. I need to pace the floor, but I can't walk. I need to get out of here … and there's nowhere to go. I can't stand who I am anymore, and I don't know what to do about it. I'm a burden on Whit and Billy and you …"

"But you're not …"

He sighed with weak exasperation. "Don't bullshit me, Gresham. I've been around the block a lot more times than you have. Yesterday I found out that I have about six months to live. I would have guessed about three, but I was a little off. So the big book of Gregory House is already closing."

"Oh God …"

I ran out of words because there was nothing more to say. I lay beside him and caressed his face and body, trying not to hurt him.

"Gresham?"

I was crying. My face was wet, my nose, running, and I was slobbering like an infant at the teat. "W-what?"

"Whit has a servo that negates pain. He told me about it a long time ago … in case I ever needed it. Well, I thought about it all day today, and the last month or so I'm going to need it pretty badly. Dying of organ failure isn't pleasant. I'm going to ask him for the use of it … and I've decided to tell the world about Jimmy and me. Nothing about the personal stuff between us … but I want everyone to know that he was alive for all those years after the world thought he was dead.

"And me too …

"I'm going make one more appearance as Gregory House. People will finally find out there really are some strange things in this world they never knew about … and they'll just have to learn to handle it. At least there will be fewer asinine UFO stories floating around out there."

I sniffed, pulled out a tissue and wiped my nose. What the hell was he talking about? What sensor? UFO stories? Huh? Was he seeing and hearing things? Did he think he had been abducted? I didn't ask. I let him ramble. And I held him close.

My mistake!

"Don't leave me," he said softly. "Just don't leave me!"

I sighed. "I can't. I have too much invested in you. I want to see where the road finally comes out."

What had happened? What had turned him around and made him cling to me? My heart quickened with hope, then thudded with the realization that very soon I would lose him. Anything that happened between us now would end when he did …

"I need to go to Mountain View," he said. "Will you come along? I need to visit Wilson's grave … say goodbye in person and talk to him one more time …"

"What _is_ Mountain View? I've heard you talk about it, but ..."

"It's where Wilson lived. It's where he died. He's buried there … and I have to go there and tell him what I've decided …"

"Of course. When?"

"Soon. Before the clock runs out …."

That night, chaste and honorable, the old man slept with the kid.

Loving and loved.

No denials. Not anymore.

Whisper of the Wind …

#

252


	43. Chapter 43

"Whisper of the Wind"

Chapter 43

"You're Not From Around Here …"

Mountain View

Early August 2009

Whitney Travis:

Back in the late 80s when I was still working for JPL at Caltech in California, I had many opportunities to burrow into my lab and get a good look at some of those funny black rocks brought back to Earth by the Martian landers. At that time, of course, it was not generally known, nor widely discussed that "other" mechanical hunter-gatherers had roamed the dismal red plains of Mars, our next-door neighbor in the solar system, for hundreds of years.

That was before it became profitable indeed to mount cameras on the landers. Those first grainy pictures of immeasurable vistas filled with dull red sand and dust clouds, became quite valuable when peddled later to the Discovery Channel and its ilk. But when the camera lenses panned in on the squat round machines and the long mechanical arms with fingers on them … whoa …

Suddenly it took on the aura of Area 51 and Roswell and Hanger 18 …

For a while there was a huge buzz about whether some of the minerals we brought back contained fossilized biological specimens. Under an electron microscope some of them looked quite a bit like worms. Was it possible? Intelligent worms? God! Everything was hush-hush. Further scrutiny proved them to be nothing more than base rock configurations indigenous to the red planet's unique molecular composition, and nothing to get more than marginally excited about.

But there were still the arms with fingers.

Not ours.

And so, a long and controversial period of "expert" scrutiny ensued. Some of those scientific "discussions" raised the roof. Years later, a number of the specimens were labeled "MQ" for "Museum Quality". They were numbered and sent down to the sub-basement to me.

Just for the hell of it, I took a couple of these discarded little goonies and smashed the shit out of them with a claw hammer. Then I stood back and watched the sparks fly.

Whoa Ho!

The field of energy these little buggers emitted was staggering. I called upstairs to find out what the hell the status of these things was …

Nothing much. They were worthless. Except as specimens for kiddies to gawk at under their classroom microscopes. Get some of the little bastards interested in science … if they could lay off their Game Boys long enough.

The other lab rats had already pummeled hundreds of them into dust in vacuum chambers and found nothing interesting or of any significance. But the two I had whacked with a hammer sent electrical chills into my brain and down my spine. The implications were astronomical.

I was compelled … I don't even know why to this day … to keep what I'd found completely to myself until I could conduct further tests. Sometime.

I sealed the fragments in crystallite cubes and locked them in my safe. Since I was in charge of distribution, they would not be missed, probably for years. Decades! Centuries!

Then, in 1998 an opportunity presented itself that I couldn't refuse. I left the employ of JPL. I was questioned about the cubes when I attempted to pack them with my personal belongings. I shrugged convincingly and told my questioner that I had sealed a couple of "MQ" Martian rocks in shiny cubes as souvenirs, and kept them on a shelf in my lab. (First great lie.)

I walked out the door with them in a cardboard shoebox.

A year later, my brother and I bought the mansion that became Mountain View. I quickly established a laboratory in the basement and set about remodeling the huge old house into a modern hospice facility where traumatized people could come to die … or spend the rest of their allotted time in pleasant surroundings with caring medical people. I was so damned weary of paranoid top-secret security and taking orders from everyone from the local mayor to POTUS. I needed a break.

It took another year to get the place to turn a profit. An annuity from our Grandfather to my brother and me paid the bills and brought us our first influx of residents. Billy and I both fell in love with the work, and the reputation of Mountain View Hospice began to come back to us in waves.

Soon, we had all the patients we could handle. The best medical personnel in the state lined up at the front door for the opportunity to work there. We hired the best of the best and paid them generously.

Billy and I erected our sign at the edge of the property near the highway where a stand of trees hid the mansion from curiosity seekers. We enclosed the vital information in the center of a large horseshoe … for good fortune:

"Mountain View Enterprises, Ltd."

Established 2000

Whitney L. Travis

William B. Travis

517-555-8232

We were official!

I spent most of my time in the basement lab where I had also put together a private residence. I then turned my attentions to the challenges of running an institution that was not an institution, but a sanctuary.

Brother Billy returned to New Jersey and his career at Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital where he had worked for years. I was the boss of Mountain View, he said. His contributions would keep it in the black until it was self-supporting.

The following year, with the business firmly established, I finally unlocked the Martian rocks from my safe and broke apart the crystalline cubes. Which weren't crystalline at all, but plastic. The energy field had not diminished. I set up every piece of personal lab equipment I had accumulated over the years and began to experiment.

It was May 10, 2001.

A week later I had a very strange gentleman-visitor who asked politely at the front desk for an appointment. Ever curious, I granted him one.

He stood at the doorway of my upstairs office with his hat … hat?? … in his hands. He was a small man. Well-turned business suit and tie. Sparse, flyaway brown hair, quite thin on top. Brown shoes, glasses, tidy mustache.

"May I help you?"

"You Dr. Travis?"

"Not Doctor … Mister. Call me Whit. Please come in and take a seat."

He moved into the office. Tiny man, tiny steps. He sat in the comfortable interview chair. He was able to swing his legs freely beneath, he was that small. "My name be Uzal," he said.

Things after that were never the same.

He was a little concerned, he confessed in a strange broken syntax, about the unusual energy emanations he and some friends had "sensed" coming from the vicinity of this building. They had decided to come and ask permission to investigate.

I stared at him, a little wary. "Sensed?" From where?

We were pretty isolated out here, and I had exposed the crystals less than a week before. How the hell did he … they? … know? Did we smell bad? Or were their olfactory senses that well developed?

"I'm a little confused, Mr. …ah … Uzal. I'm not sure what you mean by 'unusual energy emanations' …"

"Whit …" he took me at my word and called me by my first name. "Shall we be please honest with each other? We saw-hear-smell-touch head-know! Zaivonite Sand Crystals be here. Down below. Sand Crystals very important. Powerful. Want you not in danger. Show me please."

His small face was distressed. I thought he might cry. "Please, Mr. Uzal. Why do you believe this? I am in possession of a few old Martian rocks with some small energy output. Nothing to be alarmed about. Do you have any credentials to prove who you say you are?

"And by the way, who in hell did you say you were?"

He hung his head like a guilty child. "I have not credential. I here am new. We know all about crystals. Very powerful. We can teach you …"

I backed off. This little guy looked like he was getting a tad desperate. "Where are your colleagues?"

"Waiting."

"Waiting where? How many?"

"Out … in sun. You will take us?"

Against my better judgment, I nodded. He looked harmless enough.

Wrong!

Oh, what the hell …

I accompanied Uzal outside. His head reached almost to my shoulder. I'm a tall guy, but really!

There were two people sitting on the front steps. Blue jean clad. One of them was even taller than me, so that smashed the theory that Uzal was from a race of midgets. The other one was female. Even smaller than Uzal. Immediately the theory snapped back.

What-the-hell??

"You will take us to Zaivonite Sand Crystals?" The big guy asked. "I am Bem. Please!"

The woman stood up and stared up into my face. She was beautiful. "I am Naya. Please take us …"

Jesus Christ!

"Okay … yeah … come on. I'll take you." I turned around with a weary sigh and led the three of them inside.

They surrounded me eagerly … like Labrador puppies. Excited and anxious.

I looked curiously from one of them to another. What in hell was going on with these people??

"Uh … you guys aren't from around here, are ya?"

#

257


	44. Chapter 44

"Whisper of the Wind"

Chapter 44

"A Day of Sweet Regrets"

May 2025

Leather:

Pain in my leg woke me at daybreak with the usual demands. I shifted weight and reached down to touch the area of the enlarged scar, normally a promise that I would medicate it shortly. My shoulder met with resistance that should not have been there … like rolling over and butting up against a log.

_What the … ?_

I shifted my hand to feel behind me, and encountered the presence of another living, breathing body.

Last night roared back into focus and slammed me in the gut.

_Oh Jesus H. Christ!_ _What have I done? Did we … ? Did I … ? Was she … ?_

I don't panic easy, but discovering the slender body of Gresham pressed up against the middle of my back was a whole 'nother ballgame. I sat up too quickly and sent a ripple of fierce nerve pain racing from hip to knee. I gasped and hissed, the usual method I had of keeping from broadcasting pain out loud in all directions.

Nervously, agonizingly, I looked around for my cane. It was not there, unless it had slid down across the front of the nightstand and lay somewhere on the floor. Clumsy and hurting, my entire right side was beginning to throw electrical sparks and upping its demand for immediate medication. I pulled myself around and propped both hands on the edge of the mattress.

Behind me, Gresham moved restlessly and turned over in her sleep. She must have reached out and found me gone, because the next thing I heard from within the shadowy pockets of early daylight, was a quick indrawn breath and a worried: "Leather?"

_Shit!_

"Have you seen my cane? I need to get to the bathroom and dig into the candy supply."

"What candy supply? Oh."

She sat up and I could see the frizz of her flyaway hair in the first glow from the window on the other side of the bed. Somehow it calmed me for a moment and I reached back to touch her hand, resting beside my butt on the mattress. She appeared to be fully clothed, except for her shoes.

I remembered the night before. I'd had two glasses of Scotch and it floored me like a school kid sneaking his parents' hooch and having it hit him hard. I can't hold my booze anymore the way I used to. I was feeling sorry for myself after the final diagnosis early the day before. I'd probably smelled like a garbage can when Gresham knocked on my door last night, worried about me because I hadn't bothered coming in to work and hadn't called.

Vaguely I remembered prattling on about borrowing some of Whit Travis' "spec-tech" hardware … and then rambling again and begging her not to leave me …

Christ! How pathetic can you get?

"No," she was saying, scooting across to my side, giving me a hand sitting up straight and moving my legs down over the side of the bed. I felt like I was ninety years old.

"I don't know where your cane is," she said. "I didn't see it in your living room last night when I got here. Let me help you to the bathroom, get your meds and settle you in the bathtub. Then I'll scout around for it, okay?"

I nodded. "That oughta work … thanks." I had sworn to God I would never let her see me naked … but here I was … about to let it happen again.

"It's okay, Leather."

She wasn't bugging me about how I felt, how my leg was this morning, whether I might have been nauseous when I woke up … any of the usual stuff … and I steeled myself, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Her soft, youthful hands on my body felt good. She walked me to the bathroom, pulled down my pants and helped me onto the commode. And it felt natural, as though she'd been doing this kind of slave labor for years.

What was wrong with me? I could almost close my eyes and picture myself as a healthy young man, crazy in love with a woman who was his peer, his equal in every way. I could almost imagine a future in which the two of us could be together … a situation I had always dreamed about for myself, but had no hope of achieving.

She assisted me to step into the easy-access tub, and then sealed the door and ran bath water hot and fragrant with a few drops of cologne she found in the medicine cabinet. I took my meds and eased back against the warm material of the composition enclosure, watching her straighten again and catch my eye after turning off the hot water. I could see a wall of steam rising between us, and wished I had the nerve to ask her to strip down and get in there with me …

I used to have those same thoughts about Wilson or Stacy from time to time too. My Whispers of the Wind! Back in my head again. They were the gentle breeze that blew through my mind, keeping me sane even when I didn't want to be. I had chased Stacy away with my idiocy … but Wilson wasn't the type you could chase. Fortunately.

Aw Wilson … see what happens when you're not here to keep an eye on me? I get myself lost in places where I have no business.

I watched Gresham gather up discarded clothing from the bathroom floor and dump it in the hamper in the corner. "You'll make someone a good wife someday," I joked.

She looked at me again and rolled her eyes. "Oh no, sweetheart," she said. "That's not gonna happen. If I can't have you, then I don't want anybody. Besides, I have to get my M. D. first … and then we'll see about the rest of it." She paused a second. "Leather?"

"Huh?" The hot water felt so good on my screwed-up body … and I leaned back into the deep heat of it, luxuriating in the steam and the loosening of tense muscles along my lower back and the tender area near my kidneys.

"Tell me what they told you at the doctor's the other day. Which doctor did you go see?"

"I went," I said testily, "to Horace Callahan, the kidney specialist. He said I couldn't tolerate another transplant, and the liver is already showing signs of weakening … so I'm not a compatible recipient for another surgery. I wasn't surprised. Scared a little, maybe. But not surprised."

"What about a second opinion?" She persisted.

"Yeah, but why? Ho's the best in the business, mostly because he's a bastard just like me. Don't start scheming for a way to save my life, Gresham. Sometimes you just have to submit to the logic. Nobody lives forever. It would be wonderful to stick around and be here with you awhile longer, but we both know all the reasons why that's not a good decision. Please don't make this harder than it is."

"I love you, Leather."

"And I love you … but that has nothing to do with it. Let's just take what we have and try to enjoy it as long as it lasts. Like you said, you need to get your M. D. I'll be long gone before that happens … but it has to happen anyway.

"Also, I have to go to Mountain View to see Whitney Travis … and visit Wilson's grave. I have to go to Whit's lab … I have some interesting friends there I'd like to talk to … and I need to get my hands on that pain sensor.

"And if all goes well, then old Gregory House is gonna raise his ugly head one more time. Billy should probably go along with us. There are some things I need to set straight with him.

"So. Wanna give me a hand getting out of this damn tub? The water's beginning to get icy around the edges …" I'd been sitting there for almost fifteen minutes.

She was smiling now, mulling over the things I had said. She released the drain and waited for the water to recede. I toweled down and we worked our way gradually into the bedroom. She placed clothing beside me and allowed me privacy to get dressed at leisure. I could not begin to tell her how much I appreciated that.

While I got dressed, she disappeared back into the bathroom, and after a few minutes I heard the water running again. I guessed she didn't want to hear me make fun of her straw-stacky hair or listen to jokes about how her clothing looked like she had been sleeping in them.

When she came out of the bathroom, I was dressed except for my shoes. She had managed to freshen up to the point of looking the same as she had when she'd arrived last night. How the hell did she do that?

"I forgot to look for your cane," she said, and flew out of the room.

I heard things rattling around in the living room and in the hallway and in the kitchen. And then she was back with the cane held over her head, yelling: "Looky what I got!" She thrust it into my hands and dropped down to tie my shoes. "It was in the kitchen," she said. "Hanging from the top of the door. Let me help you with your shoes. Can you walk okay?"

Hell yes, I can walk okay!

But I didn't say it out loud. We locked gazes and laughed. But I knew the silliness of the moment would be short-lived.

She made us bacon and scrambled eggs for breakfast. The bacon was limp and chewy and greasy and the scrambled eggs could have been sucked through a straw … but nobody's perfect, right? We mopped up the mess with extra slices of toast.

My thoughts turned privately to Wilson … the man who could actually cook, and I got this slushy feeling inside for a moment …

We spent the rest of Friday cuddled up together on the couch. We pretended to watch TV. We touched a lot and I held her close. Her body against my skin was a sweet torture, but I was able to hold off the worst of the inappropriate longings.

We didn't indulge in serious topics. They were waay too loaded with dynamite.

Perhaps we should go over to Mountain View tomorrow. Saturday would be a good day to travel. She would finish with classes next week, and graduation week was coming up right after that. She would soon be going home for summer break. Where the hell had the year gone?

The Spider Banks would be sealed up for two months. After that I had about four months left, give or take.

God! I would be dead by Christmas!

I should probably call Billy Travis tonight ...

But I didn't.

The kiss we shared when she left was full of regrets and longing …

"I'll see you tomorrow …"

"Right. See ya …"

#

7


	45. Chapter 45

"Whisper of the Wind"

Chapter 45

"I Want You to Meet Someone"

Late August 2009

Whit Travis:

He was here. Unencumbered.

He was _dead, _he said. From today on.

Dead as a doornail when he walked through the door.

Okay, whatever you say, Leather.

He and Billy engineered it between themselves, and it worked like a charm.

The story centered on the premise that when he'd flown back to Michigan with me for his reunion with Wilson and to have a special brace fabricated for his leg, he'd gone into a series of sudden seizures brought on by pain and shock and grief, followed by cardiac arrest. The story was plausible. Gregg House was in bad shape to begin with. And he'd already been weakened by his long siege in the hospital.

He told me the only person he regretted deceiving with such a trick was Lisa Cuddy, the Jersey hospital's Chief Administrator. This woman had always been a special kind of friend, he said. They'd shared years of grudging respect and admiration. He hinted that he might even have felt a slight twinge of repentance, even though it was for the best that she never know …

Others on the team didn't matter much. They'd get over him quickly. Even "Goody Two Shoes Cameron", whoever that was.

The rest of the hospital's professional staff would probably rejoice over the news of his demise. Loud and long!

Anyway, Brother Billy delivered the news to PPTH, along with the death certificate filled out (tongue-in-cheek) by one of our resident M. D.'s.

Billy also had in his possession a letter containing Dr. House's last wishes, dated and notarized by another of our staff. (Also tongue-in-cheek). In this letter, Gregg stipulated that he be buried in a (non) grave next to Wilson, who also had a (non) grave on the property.

Complicated? Not really. You just had to think about it …

People living along Baker Street in Princeton, New Jersey, meanwhile, overlooked things that were happening right before their eyes. Billy and a few of his buddies showed up with a U-Haul truck late at night with a list of everything at 221-B that House wished to keep. He said that moving a baby grand piano quietly had been a daunting task. I did not ask my little brother for details.

Two days after that, in broad daylight on a Saturday morning, a second U-Haul truck picked up all the discards, including boxes full of abandoned sports equipment, a folding wheelchair, two sets of crutches, discarded tchotchkes, and a shiny Honda Repsol with scratches along the front cowl. The truck headed for an upscale auction barn on the Jersey Coast, but the neighbors assumed that all House's personal items were being delivered to his aunt's place somewhere in Ohio.

A long, painful chapter in Gregory House's life was, thereby, closed.

Roy Hall-Wilson, no relation to James, then an administrator at U. Mich., was a long-time professional acquaintance. He owed me one, and I decided to call in the chit by requesting an appointment to the faculty for a: "Dr. G. Leather", a very old friend of mine.

Lie #2 …Lies … lies …

Under the "Americans With Disabilities Act", and Dr. Leather, coincidentally, being a disabled man … rather obviously … the appointment was pushed through quickly and granted with dispatch. When Leather's credentials showed up in the U. of M.'s private employee filing system … five pages long, single-spaced … plus an impressive bibliography … Hall called me and thanked me personally.

I accepted with humility.

We were even. No one ever checked Leather's references.

"Dr. Leather" turned out to be an enigma. He walked gracefully and firmly on a pair of extraordinary crutches, of which no one had seen the like before. His crippled leg seemed to be locked into a position of permanent "contracture" by a fragile-looking brace system, held together with nylon netting. He looked pained and ruthless at the same time, and was given unanimous deference by students and faculty alike.

All this time I was enjoying the hell out of the way he seemed to be generating both awe and sympathy among the student body. His name was being bandied about all around campus, and leaking into every corner of town.

Leather never spoke in anything less than a growl, and when he did speak, kids jumped willingly to his command. He assumed the dual positions of Diagnostics Consultant and Student Advisor, and took over an abandoned office on the top floor of the administration building.

Students were forbidden to use the elevator. If they wanted to see him, they had to walk up five flights of steps just for an audience with a grizzly bear …

In spite of everything he did to discourage visitors, business was brisk.

While Leather scouted the area for a suitable apartment: handicap-accessible, ground floor, close to the university, a well-lighted street, a large parking space where he could actually see his car … and a dozen other strident demands. He stayed with us at Mountain View and helped out as much as he could handle, with the care of Whitey.

He was a vastly different person here than he was while at work.

It didn't take me long to see for myself how close he and Whitey had been in life, and the way Gregory House … Leather … stuck close to the man who would never even know he was there. It distressed me, and I'm not a sentimental guy. Well, maybe I am … but these two touched me to the core.

Billy was right. They were something apart from the crowd, and whatever they might have had together eventually, reached up and smacked you in the face with the force of its absence.

Gregg stayed in the little room on the ground floor, the same one he had used when we first did his brace. He became so much a part of the furniture that no one took notice anymore, or even paid attention as he gained confidence of movement among them with his easy striding, grace-with-ripples lumbering gait.

The first time we asked him to go back down to the lab to have the brace adjusted and the sensors on his Achilles tendon tightened, it was about a month later, and he was finally preparing to move into the handicap apartment he'd rented in Ann Arbor.

The experience in the lab was not only interesting, but funny as hell. He was totally surprised by everything that he found he was _not_ surprised by …

You see, there was …

First, I requested that he allow me to release the tension on his brace and that he ride down in the wheelchair.

Of course he consented. We had kind of an understanding, and he allowed me to call the shots. Usually.

None of the kids down there were expecting us, because, shooting the shit with Gregg and preparing him for the examination, I had not thought to sound the buzzer that told them they were getting company.

Most of them were congregated in the big workshop … gleefully working on this fantastic communications system we had named: "Zai-Zo".

The elevator landed at sublevel one, and the doors opened onto chaos … laughter, chatter, the sound of tools busily in use …

Uzal was there, and he was wearing his favorite costume: Nothing. Everything about his person was spiffed and buffed and dangling appropriately. In miniature! He whirled around, startled, and stared at Gregg in consternation. His tiny mouth formed a perfect letter "O".

In front of me, "Leather" sighed heavily. He may have thought at first that he was being "put on". He leaned his head back, scrunched up his expressive face, closed one eye … and squinted at Uzal with interest. "Where'd you get the Kewpie, Whit?"

Around the room, work stopped. Bodies froze in place. Most faces turned an unusual shade of pink.

Naya extracted herself from in front of one of the lab counters and came toward us. Depending on how you looked at her, she could appear extremely happy or extremely hostile. I hoped Gregg was seeing the happy part. "You do not to us say you are coming," she accused.

I met her stare a little guilty, a little apologetic. "Sorry, Naya, I just didn't think about it."

She backed off a bit, but there was still a semi-frown on her pixie face. I continued quickly, hoping my faux pas would be ignored. "But look who's here … some of you have seen Leather before …"

Gregg was turned in the wheelchair, chewing his lower lip and glaring up at me. "Whit Travis … you are nothing but a damned con artist! I was beginning to think this shit was all in my freakin' imagination."

I ignored him. How the hell had he guessed? I had never ever let on that these people were even here, or that they were different from anyone else. It was the same now as it was when they had explained it to me when I first met them in 2001: "We see-hear-smell-touch head-know … we be here!"

I stood back and rolled my eyes to the ceiling beseechingly. Then I looked at my little group of friends and said slowly: "I want you to meet someone …"

Dumb coverup. They already knew about Gregg … and he already suspected the truth about them.

Gregory House was laughing like an insane man. His eyebrows did a horizontal mambo across his forehead while he apprised the small group of workers who stared at him in wonder and curiosity. Instinctively they drew closer to this bizarre, wacky creature who laughed, seemingly, at nothing.

Then it grew quiet again while the 'new guy' took mental stock of the group. And they of him.

It was like imagining myself at the first gathering of the United Nations, way back in June of 1945, when no one knew whether or not to trust the strange-looking person seated across the table from him. Everything was strange, different, alien and unknown … and a little frightening. History was repeating itself in some bizarre way … right here in my laboratory.

Then the door at the rear of the room opened, and the remainder of the crew of techies poured out, drawn by the sudden cessation of noise and a keen "sense" of differentness.

Gregg pulled himself erect in the chair, and to my great surprise, held out both hands in invitation and greeting to the crowd of people he now faced. His eyes were bright with interest and fascination and curiosity.

Uzal was the first to approach. He was still au natural, but Gregg didn't seem to give a damn. Uzal's small hand reached out and grasped with amazing strength, that large, long-fingered one. Uzal immediately sensed Gregg's pain, and it was also obvious in

the distress lines in his face.

Even so, I could see the lopsided grin stretching out on his cheeks, and I knew Gregg was remembering the strength of Naya's small hand when she had massaged his arm while the leg brace was first being tightened.

"What are you called?" Gregg asked softly. Without having anything explained to him, he knew he was witnessing something far beyond the realm of experience.

"We are 'Boam'," Uzal said, just as softly. "We see-hear-touch-feel sand crystals with big power. Help all people. Help you."

"Thank you. You can't help Wilson or the others?"

"Wilson? Others?"

"Those upstairs … whose minds have gone away forever."

"We do not that power contain. Very sorry. We cannot your leg make well. Sorry too. But we help leg get well by self. Yes?"

"Yes. Thank you. So. Have you guys been to Mars? Venus?"

"Mars?"

"Uh … yeah. Mars … fourth rock from the sun … red one … the next neighbor down the block?"

"Ah yes … red one. Basalt rock make red world be red. Earth water here wash basalt away. Mars not got water. Just red.

"Bem … Landra … they go Mars. Long time ago find Zaivonite sand crystal. Make medicine. Good things. We see-hear-feel-touch-head know them here too. Whit have. Danger. He hit with hammer. We help.

"Okay!"

Gregg frowned at me again, quickly putting two and two together. "Billy told me once, you used to work at JPL. Didn't happen to put a couple of Martian rocks in your pockets and walk out, didja?"

"Not in so many words …" I hedged.

He rolled his eyes, then dismissed the whole thing and turned around again. I saw his right hand steal toward his thigh.

Time to get him out of here …

Gregg's face scrunched up again as he thought about what Uzal had said. "Okay. I get it. Where the hell do you guys come from?"

"Far."

"Can you phone home?"

"Phone?"

I finally extracted him rudely from their midst, but it was obvious they wanted to know much more about one another. Mutual attraction, you might say.

We knocked Gregg out and readjusted his brace. We gave him a jolt of Demerol to relieve his pain. Then I took him upstairs to his little room where the staff eased him into bed, elevated his leg and dimmed the lights.

He would probably sleep the rest of the day.

That evening I went down to my quarters and relaxed. I pulled Uzal aside and reminded him gently: "Y'know, old buddy, you might want to think about wearing some pants from now on …"

He just stared at me.

Then he and his clan walked up the cement ramp that led outside into the woods.

From there they … "went home" … for the night.

Grinning, I called after them: "Don't steal any more toilet paper, guys!"

#

13


	46. Chapter 46

"Whisper of the Wind"

"Whisper of the Wind"

Chapter 46

"The Good Shepherd"

Early June 2025

Gresham:

Classes ended yesterday.

Graduation is next week, but I don't have to stick around to attend that, 'cause it's not my turn yet.

I finished my first year of med school with honors and ended up at the head of my class. It's no wonder. I'd spent the entire year with one of the most famous doctors to ever pin a Caduceus on his chest, even though the only ones who knew it were Billy and me. And I had a part-time job that crammed my head full of famous cases from the past and obscure medical terminology that would boggle the mind of Brainiac.

So why am I not headed to Pennsylvania? I should be on the Red Eye winging its way to Wilkes Barre, and then on the shuttle barreling south. Instead I'm in my quarters, soon to be vacated for second-year accommodations, working on things Leather might want to mention in his "coming out" speech at Princeton-Plainsboro next week. To me, that's a lot more important than any medical school graduation!

Mom and Dad know everything. I called home and spilled the beans, sometimes with tears, sometimes with excitement. They said they'd been pretty sure of the truth all along, but it was for me to work out in my own time. They were right. They told me they loved me, and I should do what I had to do because I was an adult now, and had all the capabilities of an adult. I hung up, wondering for the life of me, how one former spoiled brat had grown up so lucky … and sooo ... completely surrounded by the neatest people …

My head and my heart, however, will always be with Leather.

He has told me how he's going to perpetuate the 'dog and pony show', as he calls it: he is going to walk in the front door of his old stomping grounds unannounced and enter the private sanctum sanctorum of the latest Chief Administrator. He will thence introduce himself to 'whoever-the-hell', (his words), the new guy is, and make himself 'right-the-hell' at home. Why change his ways at this late date?

I'm not sure what some of that means, but he was grinning while he told me about it, and I wasn't about to ask dumb questions while he had a smile on his face.

Billy was back!

Trips between Leather's place and my quarters to finish packing caused me to run into him on the quads across from the cafeteria. I'd been trying to come up with a way to contact him and get him to listen to me. Now I didn't have to.

He might have kept going, except that I yelled at him across the compound with a teasing threat that I would tell the world what he and Rosemary Barber did beneath the Wolverines' bleachers on the night of September 17, 1978 …

He slid to a stiff-kneed halt on the asphalt and whirled to face me. "Gresham? What the hell are you talking about?"

It was dirty pool, I knew, but it got his attention. I talked him into going along over to the caff for lunch, and to square things between us, and also, hopefully, with Leather. Reluctantly he followed, and we gravitated to one of the tables as far away from the mob scene as possible.

"What's this all about? Who the hell is Rosemary Barber?" He looked at me with those sad, dark puppy eyes, and I realized I needed to do this carefully. Leather and I had hurt this man, although we had never meant to do so. Billy was wary of my underlying motives, and I decided it would be best to begin with the abrupt truth.

"I made it up, Billy. I needed to get your attention and it worked. We have to talk and I need to tell you some things you're not gonna like."

His eyebrows rose. "Talk about what? About your affair with Leather? I'd rather not hear it, thank you." He began to push his chair back.

"No! Listen to me, Billy! There _is_ no affair! There never was. Leather cares about you, and he misses you. So do I. He has a lot to do and a short time to do it. He wants you with us, not against us. Can we _please_ settle things between us and move on? Leather is dying, Billy …"

Alarmed, he stared at me, and the defiant light in his eyes changed abruptly to something else. He stopped moving and stared at me. "What did you say?"

"You heard me, Bill. I don't stutter. His transplanted organs are beginning to fail. He's fragile. In your heart you've always known that. If they transplant again right now, his body couldn't take the trauma. If they do them one at a time, the healthy organ will threaten the weaker one. There won't be enough time for him to recover between surgeries.

"His heart is strong, but it's showing signs of stress. If they use cryogenics and lower his body temperature enough to complete the surgeries, his immune system will probably shut down. He has so much scar tissue still in transition from the last time, even a small infection would be dangerous. So he's screwed. He has a window of life that adds up to about six months, give or take … and he doesn't want further extraordinary measures …"

Billy looked stricken. His face began to crumple with distress. "Are you certain about all of this, Gresham? Where is he now? Is someone with him?"

"Yes, I'm certain. I wouldn't be telling you if I wasn't certain. I was on my way over there when I saw you."

"Are you and he … 'together'?"

"Yes, Billy. And no."

"What the hell does that mean?"

"It _means_ … I love him. I'll always love him, and I have to be with him. He loves me too, I think … as much as he's capable of loving. We are _not_ having an affair! But none of that crap matters now …

"… and you know, of course, that Leather is devastated over Dr. Wilson's death. So, are you coming?"

"Yeah, I'm coming. All I know is, I wasn't sure where I stood with you. I had to pull back because I didn't trust myself to see you."

"I'm sorry about this, Billy," I said at last. "I really am. Whitney loves Leather as much as you do. They got to be friends in a really short time. I'm going to get to meet him tomorrow. We're going there, and it would really be nice if you would come with us. Gregg needs you, Billy. Probably more than he needs me.

"I know you wanted him to 'come out of his hiding place' … reclaim his real name … become 'Gregory House' again. Well, he's decided to do that. Next week we're going to visit Princeton-Plainsboro … he wants to see some of the staff he used to work with; tell his story. You could help pave the way for that."

Billy placed his large arms on the table and lowered his head onto them. The beads in his cornrows clacked on the surface. The strands of hairs in his braids were getting whiter and whiter. He sat there for a minute or more … staring down at the floor.

"Billy?"

He looked up again, meeting the questions in my eyes. Startled by the sound of my voice. "I have to change my schedule … but Ican call from his place. How are you getting over there? Shuttle?"

I shook my head. "No, I have the Edinburgh."

He blinked. "Isn't that thing hard to drive?"

"Yeah … but I still have to get it home. Want to follow me? Or meet me there? I gotta get going."

"Parking lot?"

"Yeah."

"Let's go!"

I pulled into Leather's parking space and shut off the engine. Billy pulled in beside me and was out of his car in a flash. I had barely got the steering wheel pushed out of the way when he yanked my door open. "Not easy to drive a hand-control, is it?"

I smiled and climbed out around the maze of levers. "No … but at least he has plenty of room in this thing to stretch out his leg." I was already on my way up the sidewalk with my denim overnighter in my fist. "In the mood for whipping up some grilled cheese and tomato soup?"

He was right behind me. "I guess I could be talked into it," he said softly with a smile of chagrin. "I have to talk to Leather first. I have some apologies to make."

"No you don't. It was a misunderstanding. He'll just ask where the hell you've been for so long …"

That's exactly what Leather did.

He was catnapping on the couch when we walked in. His face was turned hard into the backrest and his shoulders were tipped in an awkward fashion. He had no cushioning anywhere near his head. His legs were covered with the old throw, but the bad one was not elevated. He looked cold and uncomfortable.

The television was on, but muted. He must have been listening for the Edinburgh to return and had fallen asleep. I dropped my bag and started toward him, but Billy stopped me with a light hand on my arm. "Let me, Gresham, okay?"

I nodded. "Sure."

The big man walked over to the couch and crouched at his old friend's side. His big paw touched the back of Leather's hand with something like reverence.

Leather drew a deep breath at the touch and awoke with a painful grimace. Quickly he covered it up when he saw who was at his side. The blue eyes quickened for an instant with sparks of recognition and pleasure. Then he covered that up as well and roused himself to look around.

"You're a little late, Travis. You have a flat tire or something on the way over here?"

"I've had a lot of flat tires lately, Boss. Sorry." Billy was already reaching for pillows at the other end of the couch, settling one behind Leather's back and the other one under the bum leg.

Leather shrugged. "What's with 'sorry'? You're here now."

"Yes I am. It hurts so damned much about Jimmy. Even worse that I acted like an ass and didn't come to you ..."

"Whit said you'd come to me when you were supposed to. He knows how hard it's been. But Wilson's not a vegetable anymore. He's gone to that place he used to bug me about. Maybe I'll see him there soon. We're going down to the mansion tomorrow, by the way. Gresham tell you? She tell you about the rest of it?"

Billy's head lowered, eyes downcast. "Yeah. Leather … I …"

"Stop it, Billy! Shit happens. You've known my status from the git-go … an' it's what ya do with the time left that matters. Aint that right, Gresham?"

I walked over and sat down beside them. "Yeah. It is." I reached for the throw and lifted it to cover his upper body. He made an exasperated face and slapped my hand away. He didn't mind if I coddled him, but not in front of anyone else.

He grinned up at me and winked.

"Stop that! I'm fine, dammit!"

#

18


	47. Chapter 47

"Whisper of the Wind"

Chapter 47

"On the Road Again"

June 2025

Mountain View:

"June is Bustin' Out All O-o-ver … an' June just needs a slightly larger dress …"

Dean Martin used to belt out that song, giving it a comedic twist, of course, perched on top of the old grand piano with Ken Lane at the keyboard.

Long time ago. But Gregory House remembered it perfectly.

Billy Travis drove his car toward Lansing and listened, cringing, to the caterwauling that came from the back seat. Gregg was back there, tucked up in the air conditioning, about half high on pain meds and singing at the tops of his lungs in what used to be a decent baritone, but now sounded somewhat like the screech of a wounded bobcat.

Travis and Gresham looked at each other across the expanse of front seat and gritted their teeth at the discordant bellowing. Gregg was distracting himself from their journey, along with its deeper mission, by drowning out his painful thoughts with jungle noise.

They both knew he was hoping one of them would shout at him to shut up so that he could regale them with hyper-snark. But it wasn't happening. They had earlier decided that by the time they arrived at Mountain View he would be hoarse and scratchy throated.

That wasn't happening either.

It had rained the night before, from the time Billy left about midnight, giving the Earth a gentle sloshing and a rinse job that glistened in the morning sun and made the fresh green grass sparkle like diamonds.

Billy had lifted Gregg's skinny ass off the couch and carried him back to bed with a gentleness that erased their three-month estrangement as though it had never happened.

"Glad you're back, man," Gregg said, sotto voce.

"Me too, Boss," Billy answered in kind. And that was the end of it. The timeline repaired itself between them as though it had never had that rip in it in the first place.

Later, Gresham would administer Leather's night meds and rub his shoulders and back and legs, ever careful around the ultra-sensitive right thigh and the weakened knee below it. He would snuggle deep into her embrace and bury his face deliciously into her fragrant cleavage with a sigh of contentment.

And then he would slowly become silent and distant. Again.

They never spoke about the sex act. Sex-enhancing drugs were not an option for him. He was unable as well as unwilling, and it was understood.

Sometimes, however, with his permission she would massage him _there_ also, and any feeble response that occurred helped stir them to the limits of that which nature allowed. Leather often regretted that it would never happen between the two of them, but they played the cards they were dealt and lived with it. Sometimes they talked about their strange relationship, and what it might be like if only circumstances could have been different.

The ghost of James Wilson was always a silent presence there, but they never tried to push his spirit aside or ignore it. They allowed his aura its own entrance into their nightly embrace, and held his gentle entity between them with a sense of quiet welcome. There was always room for Jimmy.

Leather never said anything out loud, but he knew in his heart that this young, pretty, intelligent woman had done more for his troubled existence than he could ever put into words. So he didn't. He hoped she would know.

She did.

The Banshee wails from the back seat of the Volkswagen halted abruptly, causing silence to crash in like a train wreck.

"Are we there yet?"

Halfway between a snark and a pout, Gregg's juvenile outburst set them to smiling. Exactly as he'd intended. Then, quietly: "My leg hurts …"

The trip to Mountain View took only an hour, but Gregg discovered something new in the offing: he was no longer able to ride passenger in the back seat of a car with any degree of comfort. One more hard fact to add to his end-of-life resume.

Whit Travis, Jeremy Elton and Shirley Appel met them at the mansion's front entrance.

Jeremy, as usual, stood with both hands resting on the chrome handles of a sturdy wheelchair.

Gregg allowed himself a short hiss of disgust, but dragged his cane across the seat behind him as he prepared to get out.

Billy and Whit, as brothers often do, allowed each other a manly "pummel-on-the-back" macho bear hug before stepping quickly apart.

"Yo Bro!" They both said simultaneously. A little old fashioned, but then so were they.

Gresham looked at them and smiled. So alike, except for the ten-year span of time between them. Whit's hair was short and wavy, and liberally sprinkled with silver. He packed about ten more pounds than Billy, and he wore wire-frame glasses that made him look like a professor. Their facial features and coloring were identical. Gresham hung back as the stranger of the bunch, quickly appraising the people who had been the caregivers of James Wilson. She liked what she saw, but waited quietly for formal introductions.

Leather saw her in the background as he was lifted bodily by Whit Travis and settled into the wheelchair. "Hey Gresham! Get up here!"

She walked to him and placed her hand on his shoulder. "Are you all right?"

He smirked. "I'm fine!"

And she knew he wasn't.

He introduced her anyhow as "the brat who works for me and feeds me and scrubs my back …" which drew nervous laughter and made Gresham's face turn three shades of scarlet. She didn't embarrass easy, but _damn!_

Together they all rode to the third floor and were led to the room that had housed James Wilson … "Whitey". It seemed that the single reason for trekking up there and bringing back a lot of sad memories was the little Baldwin spinet and the cardboard box sitting on top and tied up with string.

"The piano and the box are yours," Whit explained. "Whatever you choose to do with them. I can have the piano delivered to you by the end of the week. The box is all that was left of Jimmy's personal effects. As you know, he didn't have a whole lot of use for them …"

Gresham saw Leather's head bow as he accepted the small box. She wondered if he would finally break down.

Out of nowhere, Shirley Appel produced a damp washcloth and handed it across. Gresham saw Leather take it with a nod of thanks. They really care for him here, she thought.

Gregory House wiped his face and looked up. They were all watching him closely.

"The piano belongs to Mountain View," he said finally. "I'm giving up my apartment in Ann Arbor … and I'm thinking of moving here if you'll have me. I haven't got much time left, and this is the place that took me in like a lost pup … so here I'll stay. I've already written a letter of resignation to the university. They won't miss me much, because I didn't do much. I need to get my field jacket and boots out of my office. And a little statue of 'Mister Peanut' ..."

At first there was silence. Then they were surrounding him like a hero returning from a field of battle. Gresham stood back, a little overwhelmed. Leather's elbows came up in mock self-defense, and he was ducking his head as though fending off a swarm of bees. But under it all, he was grinning like the cat that got the canary.

He had not said a word to her about moving over here. Typical of his tight-lipped sense of privacy. The peculiar thing about it though, was the fact that Whit Travis stood in the doorway with one leg cocked over the other. There was a smug look on his attractive face, so she decided that at least one other person knew about Leather's plans.

And Leather had not once touched his leg in pain since they'd arrived …

Shirley and Jeremy ended their shifts and went home.

Gresham, Leather, Billy and Whit went down to ground level. Whit pulled out his Zai-Zo and called the kitchen supervisor. "Got enough chow for four extra, Chet?"

"Sure, Boss, come on over," came the cheery voice.

They had their noon meal with a crowd of "undertimers" and "overtimers" … Mountain View lingo for those who came in four hours early or worked four hours over. They lingered over hot roast beef sandwiches, mashed potatoes and creamed corn, tall glasses of ice water and steaming hot coffee. The conversation through the room ran the gamut from the practice of medicine to the field of mechanical engineering to every contact sport ever played.

In the afternoon, Whit showed his guests to the south wing where patients' families stayed overnight with their loved ones when necessary. They each had their own space, with a connecting door between Gresham's quarters and Leather's so she could assist him if he needed it.

Whit teased her about the need to perfect her own bedside manner, because she certainly wouldn't learn any of that from _Gregg!_ … and Gresham soon found that she liked this man very much. Just like his brother!

In the evening Leather was restless and antsy. His legs and shoulders hurt and he could not get comfortable. Gresham massaged his stripped-down body, turned on the heat to the mattress and covered his legs with a heated blanket. For awhile he dozed. But then he was awake again and tossing about.

Finally she called Billy, who had been downstairs in his brother's quarters. He came up and sat with his friend awhile, but Gregg was still restless. Finally Billy pulled down the blankets. "Boss … may I touch you?"

There was a nod. Very formal. "Yeah."

Huge, strong male hands laid themselves hard on Gregg House's frail, stringy frame. Then they began to knead. Not the gentle, feathery touch of Gresham, but the heavy no-holds-barred grip of a grown man's strength.

Gresham found that she could not watch. Leather was moaning. Voicing his pain loudly and not trying to hold it in as he'd always done with her.

Finally she had to leave. She stepped outside into the hallway. Things were quiet beyond the closed door.

Daytime service personnel had all gone home. Lights were dimmed. Only the hum of overhead air conditioners, water coolers cycling on and off, and normal sounds of a professional building at night, remained. Slowly she looked around to get her bearings and then began to walk the hall. It was peaceful here. And quiet. Even the elevators were mostly silent, except for periodic clicks and recycling in those servos also. Night shift workers would be arriving soon. It was nearing 10:30 p.m.

Quiet as a mouse, she walked. There was a snippet of staccato hisses riding on the air, and she cocked her head to listen. Something familiar …

Down the hallway a couple of human shadows stretched across the carpet; two people having a conversation. One very tall, the other much smaller. An adult and a child, perhaps. She was catching up to them, coming within range of their voices. One of them was Whit.

The other was not a child, although Whit addressed him as such.

She paused and listened, reminded of Christmas Eve in her parents' kitchen.

"Are you kids going home tonight?"

"When Mister Blue's brace done."

"Can you really finish it tonight?"

"Thinkingso … hear-smell-see-head-know-yes."

"Thank you, Uzal. I appreciate your help. Tell the kids I said 'thanks' … and go easy on my toilet paper?"

"Willdoing. Night."

Gresham stood glued to the spot.

_THAT was a strange conversation!_

Whit Travis turned the corner and his footfalls receded in the distance. But the person who walked quietly away from her in the opposite direction made her stand with mouth wide open, staring. It was a very small man. She doubted whether the top of his head would reach to her shoulder.

But that wasn't what made her stare after him as his figure receded into the dimness of the long south corridor.

The very small man was very _very_ naked.

When Gresham returned to their quarters, the room was dimmed; Leather was deep under the covers and sound asleep.

Billy Travis sat on a straight chair beneath one of the tall windows with his chin resting on a clenched fist on the windowsill. She wanted to tell him about the strange person she had seen talking to his brother, but he looked so sad that she knew his feelings were much more important than some strange little guy with no clothes on.

"Billy?"

He turned to face her, dark eyes pooled. "He's going to die," he whispered. "Then they'll both be gone."

"Yes," she said. "I was wrong, Billy. There are some things I have no power over. Hurts a lot, doesn't it?"

"Yeah."

"But the whisper of the wind, Billy …

"It will still be there for both of us."

#

25


	48. Chapter 48

"Whisper of the Wind"

Chapter 48

"Friends"

June 2025

Mountain View,

The Next Day

Gregory House:

I was up at 4:40 a.m. Sunday. It wasn't yet daylight, but the tops of the windows in my room were tinged with a pinkish glow, so it wouldn't be long. Shadows from the moonlit woods beyond hid everything else.

Back there somewhere was where Wilson was resting, and I would be in his ghostly presence soon. I wondered what he would have to say to me about that "Plateau" he used to talk about. Is that where he is … waiting for me? In that silly "Somewhen"? Or was he full of shit about the whole business?

From the lip of my cozy cocoon of bed coverings, I looked around for any evidence of other warm bodies. Nope. No one else was there. Travis and Gresham must have collapsed for the night in their own rooms.

My morning meds were on the nightstand, along with a tepid glass of water with a film of plastic wrap over the top. My babysitters were on the job as usual, visible or not. So I took the pills, dumped the filmy shit in the waste can and replaced the glass. Bah!

I pushed back the covers and struggled to move myself in the general direction of the edge of the bed. My leg wasn't cooperating very well, but it wasn't broadcasting any shrieks of protest either. The rest of me was strangely free of aches and pains. Amazing, since Billy had done everything last night except run over me with a Greyhound Bus.

I discovered that I was wearing only a flimsy pair of institutional boxer shorts; white ones. The too-wide legs were wrapped around my ass and the tops of my thighs like a towel around the agitator of a washer, and my nuts felt like they were in a vise.

_Jesus! What a crappy way to treat a dying man!_

I struggled to extricate myself. Finally ended up tearing the elastic to get them off. I threw the damned things across the room.

_OW!_

Underwear, socks, blue tee shirt and jeans lay in a neat pile on the dresser. Even a pair of brand new sneakers with the tag still on them, had been placed on the floor beneath.

Only one problem that I could see.

No freakin' cane!

I scanned the periphery of the room, every visible nook and cranny, searching for the only means I had to propel myself over there without breaking my freaking neck, grabbing the pile of stuff and getting back.

Not there. Not anywhere. I slid off the edge of the bed and landed on my left leg, doing a balancing act to extend to arm's length before I had to test my weight on the right side.

_Hop-step, hop-step. _Grab everything. _Hop-step, hop-step_ back.

I felt as though I had run a marathon. I tossed the pile onto the bed and hefted my bare ass up beside it. The palm of my hand encountered something hard beneath the blanket, and I knew immediately ... Damn! I had kicked the covers over my cane before I saw it was there at the foot of the bed. I clenched my fists in frustration for a moment, but a tantrum was motivationally useless, so I decided against it.

It took me about ten minutes to get dressed. Doing so while on a messy bed isn't easy. The shoes were murder. It was about 5:15 and the other two still weren't up.

I thought: _Oh … what the hell …_

I looked over at the wheelchair, folded and leaning against the wall across the room. No, dammit! I needed to move, not another day of sitting on my ass allowing myself to lose more and more muscle tone. I grabbed the cane, pushed away from the bed and worked my way to the door.

I entered the hallway and slid the door closed careful and quiet behind me. _Free at last!_ I chuckled. Old Marty King had lent me a lot of sage phrases that I used as my own and never gave him credit for. Good man.

The halls were empty. I could hear a few electrical hummings, but what building this size doesn't have a few of those, right? I turned to the left and began to walk toward the

hub.

I made it as far as the main corridor junction at a fairly brisk clip. But then I began to realize I might have bitten off more than I could chew. There was nowhere to sit down. Damn! Trying to get to my clothing without the cane might have been the tipoff. Like the ass that I am, I'd ignored it. My breaths were beginning to come in gasps and my leg was burning up from the inside out. It was the same kind of burn I used to experience before the infarction when I had been running for the sheer delight of it, and had run about a mile too far.

Gasping, I slowed to a crawl, then to a stop, heaving, turning my back into the wall. I dropped the cane and both hands went to the leg. Oh God!

"Sit!" High-pitched man's voice … or low-pitched woman's …

I opened my eyes to kaleidoscopic images, close to passing out. Then things began to clear, and there stood the Kewpie doll man from the basement lab years before. Straight from Roswell! I have no idea how he got there, or how he knew I was in distress. But there he was, dragging a dining room chair and directing me to sit down on it. Which I did with dispatch. At least the little shit had pants on this time!

"Thank you. I didn't know I was so weak." I stretched out my leg and began working on it. He wasn't finished with me, and he showed no signs of going away.

"Was a dumb thing to do," he said. "Dumb thing. Trying to kill yourself? Make your heart stop? Not time yet."

Rubbing my leg and trying not to moan out loud, I looked over at him with a cold wash of resentment. Was I dreaming, or was his former mode of Pidgin English beginning to smooth out into something more coherent? He'd been around here a long time. Maybe the language was beginning to rub off on him …

His eyes changed from sheer innocence to something darker and full of a humorous intelligence. He reached a small hand out to me and placed his palm on the back of my hand where it clutched the scarred area of my thigh. The pain lessened immediately, back to normal 'ouch' settings, and I knew that the suspicions I'd had when I first met him back in '09, had been spot on. "Uzal, right?"

He nodded. "Yes. You remember. Surprised."

"When you said 'far' to me a long time ago, you meant … _'faaarrr'_ … didn't you?"

His eyes danced as though at last he had found a kindred spirit. "Yes."

"Did you guys move here just to work with Whit?"

"No. We go home sometimes."

"Seriously? Home … where is 'home'?"

"You have no concept."

"I don't doubt it. You got a space ship stashed out back?"

"No. We just go. Then we come back. Much work to do."

"Never mind. Why did you come here in the first place?"

"Whit."

"What about him?"

"Dangerous!"

"Dangerous how? He's not a bad guy, is he?"

"No. Very good guy."

"Then what?"

"He stole mystery Mars rocks. In box. Experimented. Almost blew up your world. Try to help people. He suspected power of crystals."

"Huh?"

"Hit rocks with hammer. We knew. It was a UH OH! 'Ka-boom!' he said. We stopped him. Helped him learn to work with tiny crystals we have used for centuries. Now your world will benefit also, and not go 'Ka-boom'. Whit is smart man, but we go slow. Zai-Zo unit works on same crystals. PING Computers … sand crystals. The brace for your leg … powered with crystals. Nylon is not nylon. Titanium not titanium! Is from far away. Many things possible. Too many your kind … greedy. Your world still not ready. We will be here until it _is_. Wanted you to know. You honor us as Whit and Billy honor us. We honor you in return. Okay?"

I looked at him, evaluating, speculating; studying the cherubic face that hid a brain of incalculable intelligence. I smiled at him, nodded agreement. Uzal was asking for my discretion by not asking for it. I agreed to his request by not agreeing to it. And the matter was settled.

I was looking into the face of the universe … and its secret was locked between us.

Except maybe …

I asked Uzal's permission. He granted it.

Then he asked for a part of me in return ...

And I agreed to give it … eagerly.

Gresham and Billy caught up with us shortly after that. They found me in a not-so-distant hallway, drinking coffee, munching on toast, and having a long, involved conversation with a little green man in tee shirt and running shorts.

Nah … he's not really green …

I didn't understand at the time why Gresham stared at him with such an astounded look on her face. I seemed no worse for wear, so they did not bother giving me hell for disappearing from my room and scaring the shit out of them. I smiled to myself … inside … where they couldn't see.

That afternoon I went to visit Wilson's grave.

I was adamant about not being pushed out there in a wheelchair, so we went down to sub-level on the elevator, through the empty lab and Whit's quarters to the cement ramp that led outside.

I walked slowly, not pushing myself as Uzal had "suggested" that morning. It worked out well. I had loaded up on meds, and so I made it with a minimum of effort.

Whit and Gresham and Billy, (I had completely stopped calling him "W. T."), flanked me like the Secret Service flanked POTUS. I knew that if I so much as hiccupped, I would be picked up and carried like the ventriloquist dummy Whit had teased me about. So I didn't hiccup.

We came out near the ambulance entrance around the back of the huge old building. The woods were only twenty feet away.

I planted my cane hard in front of me with each step, perhaps an attempt at chasing away emotions that were already clogging my nasal passages and messing with my head.

I knew where I was going, because Whit had told me which way to turn that would lead me to the leafy glade where Wilson rested in a natural setting beneath old oak and maple trees.

The pathway was tamped down for easy passage, and I knew it was another concession to my pigheadedness at not wanting to appear vulnerable, even to a dead friend.

Jimmy's grave was there, resting beneath a rectangle of fresh, new grass and surrounded by bright flowering shrubs and a dappled canopy overhead.

At the place where the head of the coffin lay, a marble slab with the Star of David glinted in the flickering sunlight. This was the tribute I had requested for this man who was most responsible for holding my screwed-up life and damaged soul together.

The others stood back, watching silently as my legs gave out beneath me and I landed hard on my knees at his feet.

I never felt the jolt, and I felt no shame at the tears that darkened the front of the tee shirt. His spirit would behold me as Wilson had always beheld me in life: Gregory House … badass, prick, asshole, bastard, pain-pill addict, sarcastic slob, and, I hoped … best friend.

Been a long time, eh, Wilson? I've missed you …and I'm soon gonna bust your ass for running off ahead of me …

Did you get to your Plateau? You'd better save a place for me, 'cause it won't be long now …

I'm going back to Princeton and come clean about the way I hid you from the world all these years. I owe you one. You saved my worthless life over and over … and I never said 'thank you'. So I'm saying it now. And I'll say it again when I see you.

Rest easy, Wilson …

The rest I don't remember. I sat crunched there for a long time, and then I didn't know anything more.

The last I remember, there was a breeze messing my hair … like maybe Wilson's teasing fingers … the whisper was still fooling around with my senses.

I woke up on Whit's couch. Someone was holding a glass of water to my lips and someone else was leaning my cane close to my side.

"Did I pass out out there?"

"Yeah …"

"Sorry …"

"You are a total pain in the ass in your old age …"

"Thank you."

No one mentioned Wilson's name.

I was grateful for that, I think ...

#

31


	49. Chapter 49

"Whisper of the Wind"

Chapter 49

"Coming Out Party"

Princeton Plainsboro Teaching Hospital

August 2025

Foreman and Chase,

House and Gresham,

The Travis Brothers:

Dr. Eric Foreman slowed his car before entering the employees' parking lot at the front of the hospital. The entrance was a rough one with a dip that turned a car into a trampoline if you did not angle the front tires to avoid hitting it head on. They should do something to fix that, he thought. He had thought that for twenty years. But they never had. He swung the Lexus around to the left and drove slowly to his marked space.

Foreman scowled with curiosity at the four media vans parked low in the visitors' lot. Two of them were TV Station rigs. Two others were from local newspapers.

CHANNEL 23, WNJS was plastered on the side of one of the bigger vehicles, NJN-PBS written in smaller script on the second. There was a car from Princeton Packet, the local paper, and an SUV from Trenton TIMES. Foreman scowled. They were waiting for something to happen, drivers behind the wheels, watching the street.

_More damned fund raisers!_

Foreman smiled to himself in remembrance of Lisa Cuddy. He thought of her fondly, way up in Syracuse now. Married and a mom. He recalled her fierce business sense. Her tenacity, her stubborn determination, things he'd admired most about her. His old boss had been one of the most dedicated grant seekers and donation-happy administrators he had ever known. Always with her fingers on the pulse of giant corporations with grant money to spend and medical equipment to donate in order to get their CEO's names in the paper.

There sat the vans. They were frequent visitors here. Lurking. At least one or two a week. Must have a hot tip about the arrival of another politician ready to stretch out the glad hand and smile charmingly for the crowd. Another high mucky-muck today, coming to get his face on the front page or on the six o'clock news. Or both.

The shadowy figures in the vans were definitely waiting for something to happen, but it was still a little too early. Oh well, it was none of his business …

Foreman locked his car, grabbed his briefcase and walked slowly across the parking lot. At 6:45 a.m., it was already hot and humid. Traffic had been heavy for this time of morning and he was a little up tight about it. Beginning the day with wetness under his arms was not a pleasant feeling. He had extra dress shirts in his office. Getting out of his suit jacket and tie sounded like a good idea. His attitude would probably improve drastically when he felt a little more comfortable.

Eric had turned fifty-two last month, and he'd expected to be further advanced in his profession by now. Time was marching on, and to be truthful, he was feeling every damned minute of his age. He had heard fleeting rumors that Luther Strange was moving to the Veterans Hospital in Wilkes Barre, the last step before retirement. If that was true, he intended to throw his hat in the ring once again for the position of PPTH's Chief Administrator.

A powerful roar from the street heralded the arrival of a familiar flashy sports car as it leapt the dip into the lot and swung left in front of him. A Franklin Pro-Torp Roadster, its turbines whining like giant tuning forks, pulled into its assigned spot and powered down.

Foreman frowned and shook his head. Some things in this life remained as constant and familiar as an old tee shirt. His friend had always had a weakness for hot cars, and this was one of the hottest. Its fancy moniker was a misnomer, however, because the thing ran on compressed air. But it sounded like a jet plane in a wind tunnel. It must have cost Chase a fortune. Eric stepped up on the curb in front of the main entrance, turned back slightly, and waited for his younger colleague to catch up.

Somehow Robert Chase still looked boyish, as though he'd just stepped out of a men's shop. He was princely, his blonde hair beginning to turn a little lighter around the edges, his elegant, tailored blue suit and matching tie accenting the fact that he was always fit and trim and handsome. Chase had not lost his youthful ebullience, even after all these years.

"Aren't you about roasting in that get-up?" Foreman groused. "I feel like I'm in a sauna."

Chase shook his unruly mop and grinned slyly at the dark complexioned Foreman. "You might want to try something lighter than that Eskimo suit you've stuffed yourself into. Check out the neo-nylons like mine. Or try tee shirt and jeans sometime …"

He chuckled. "And carry a cane … with flames …"

"Har de har har!" Foreman growled. "It's only Monday, for cryin' out loud. Thanks for reminding me of _that_ jackass so early in the morning."

"You started it."

Chase poked a thumb back over his shoulder in the direction of the news vans in the visitor's lot. "What's with the paparazzi? More smiling faces to grace the morning paper? Who this time?"

Foreman shrugged. "Hell if I know. Must be some politician with a pet fund raiser … wants to get his mug on TV ..."

They walked together amiably into the spacious lobby of PPTH and headed across in the general direction of the elevators. Nancy Berger, R. N. was working the front desk alone this morning, and they were both acutely aware that her eyes were settled on them as they approached. Both men saw her finger crick in their direction, so they changed course to stop in front of the counter she was leaning on.

The lobby was filling up around them, potential patients heading across, taking seats in the free clinic or waiting to sign in for appointments in other departments. Clumps of impatient people were clamoring for Nancy's attention, but daytime employees hadn't arrived yet, and she was forced to talk to them one at a time in order of arrival.

Robert Chase, suave and sophisticated and strikingly urbane, propped his elbow on the desktop beside hers, propped his chin on his fist, and looked directly and firmly into the growing sea of scowling faces. "Easy folks," he said. "Someone will be here to help you shortly. Please don't crowd each other. This is a hospital, not a boxing arena. Give yourselves room to breathe …"

His words, spoken in a disarming, relaxed and half-teasing manner, broke the tension. People stood back reluctantly after spying his M. D. name tag, but eased up on their crowding. He thanked them profusely and withdrew.

Berger turned around and blew a whiff of auburn hair off her forehead. "Thanks, Dr. Chase. Millie is late for some reason. Also, I have a message from 'Old Paleface' that you and Dr. Foreman are to stop by his office before you go upstairs. Okay?"

Foreman looked meaningfully at Chase and they nodded together.

"Thank you, Nancy," Chase said. "Any idea what it's about?"

She shook her head. "Probably budget. You know how worked up he gets about that stuff. Cuddy would have taken care of it with Accounting and been done with it. This guy always gets all up tight about it. So it goes."

A dark-haired woman in blue scrubs rushed across the lobby and hurried behind the counter of the registration desk. "Sorry I'm late, Nance … traffic is terrible!"

It was the missing Millie, finally showing up for work, and she found herself being quickly mobbed by the people Chase had just finished calming down.

Chase and Foreman peeled off and nodded their thanks to Nancy Berger. They turned to make their way through the sea of bodies, aiming for the spacious office that had long ago been Lisa Cuddy's. They were probably going to be tagged to take part in whatever hullabaloo might result from the news vans in the parking lot. Neither man looked forward to the idea.

PPTH Hospital Administrator's sanctuary was very austere these days. Most of the tall, big-leafed floor plants were long gone, except for one anemic Ficus tree with dropping leaves and twisted stalk in a dry pot.

Gone from the window shelf behind the desk, were the handsome green Tiffany lamp and the heavy green ceramic urn that used to offset it on the other side. The big old Dell PC that had covered one corner of the desk was no longer there either. In its place squatted a hungry looking Zai-Zo laptop that kept recycling hospital line-o-graphs like ducks in a shooting gallery.

Foreman and Chase paused in front of the double doors to Strange's office. Looking around at the mounting clamor of the big hospital's morning routine, they stood silent for a moment and girded themselves for the unpleasant and boring press conference. They would probably be asked to serve as the hospital's representatives. Lisa Cuddy used to love this, they remembered. But this man shied away from the spotlight and delegated responsibility to the first doctor or doctors who passed within reach.

The two men turned to the doors once more and walked in. They stood before the big desk, waiting for some indication of what was to happen now.

The room's soft indirect lighting had been replaced with harsh fluorescent spirals after the use of energy-hungry incandescent bulbs had been eliminated. The comfortable old flowered sofa and chairs had been whisked away also; replaced by legal-office modern. No house plants, no warm, deep carpet, no figurines. There was no welcoming ambiance to this place anymore.

The tall, thin man who occupied the "throne" these days fit Nancy Berger's description of "Old Paleface" very well.

Dr. Luther V. Strange had colorless hair that was combed straight back from a thin widow's peak and lay flat against his skull. His ears stuck out like car doors standing open, and his cheekbones and chin jutted like sharp rock formations from the prominent angles of his face. His cheeks were scraped clean of facial hair, except for a tiny, almost invisible mustache that cowered beneath his nose like a tree frog under a mushroom.

Dr. Luther V. Strange, M. D., FACS, had been in charge here for almost seventeen months now, one more in a lengthening progression of administrators that followed in the competent footsteps of Lisa Cuddy. Strange would probably throw in the towel also, before another year was up.

Every physical joke the staff could conjure had already been passed on along the hospital's grapevine. Dr. Strange's middle name was actually "Victor", but the grapevine had changed it to: "Very". He dressed in summer-tan suits ala US Air Force … another source of ill-concealed delight.

The pale blue eyes seemed lethargic, but they were astute and discerning. Dr. Strange was painfully aware what they thought of him around here. Lisa Cuddy and all her descendants before him, had turned out to be hard acts to follow, but he had a mission to accomplish. He had been in close touch with a friend in Michigan, and a man of some import was coming here today.

He looked up from his desk and watched Foreman and Chase walk through his heavy glass double doors and pause uncomfortably in front of him. "Have a seat, gentlemen," he said. He held a pair of official looking papers in his hand as he gestured at the two chairs flanking the desk.

Chase and Foreman did as requested and then looked up expectantly.

"I have called you here," the doctor said, "because I have in my hand, a puzzle. I don't like puzzles, but the two of you, in particular, may be able to solve this one for me."

Both men frowned in curiosity, not certain what he meant. He held an envelope and two folded sheets of paper in his hand. It was very unusual for business letters to be delivered through USPS anymore … not since Zai-Zo …

"I have here a very polite request from a man in Lansing, Michigan, who owns a large facility that houses a sanctuary for dying patients and their families. It is also a hospital for the care of severely disabled people … and 'round-the-clock' monitoring of those who are now being called 'marginally conscious'.

"His name," Dr. Strange continued, "is Whitney Travis. He, along with his brother, William, also owns a medical research laboratory. The work there utilizes unusual experimental innovations with the powerful Zaivonite Sand Crystals … both of you have certainly read the studies being done with them." He continued without waiting for a reply.

"Their lab staff deals in sophisticated applications with these crystals, and have discovered there is a growing tendency in improving mobility for injured limbs and bones. These people are also developing electronic sensors that work with certain forms of paralysis and muscle and nerve regeneration. If all this is true, it's quite remarkable.

"Some of these men will be in town today on a procurement trip. They would like to talk to us about a research and development grant here. Since we _are_ a teaching hospital, we might be interested in what they have to offer."

"To what purpose?" Foreman asked skeptically. He frowned, wracking his brain, and striving to remember where he had heard those names before. "We have never done this kind of work here. Were you thinking we might apply a few of their breakthrough techniques?"

"It's not so much the purpose or the use of the techniques, Dr. Foreman," Strange replied.

"As I said … I don't like puzzles … and this sounds to me like a puzzle. It was the _name_ of the research facility that peaked my curiosity."

"What's that?" Chase inquired.

"It's called 'The Gregory House Laboratory for Advanced Research'."

Their faces froze, eyebrows raised to spectacular heights. "Gregory House?" They repeated his name in unison.

Dr. Strange nodded. "Yes. It's a newly established facility. That's why I wanted to ask the two of you what you thought. I believe both of you have had the privilege of working with the notorious Dr. House in the past …"

Robert Chase scowled, an expression quite foreign to his face these days. "Yessir. We did have the … privilege. The two of us were members of his first team of fellows. But Dr. House died in 2009. Why would someone from Michigan name a new research facility for him?"

Foreman's eyes narrowed suddenly. "Chase … Billy Travis! Remember him? He got to be pretty good friends with both House and Dr. Wilson. Billy always ignored House's bluster. After the accident when Wilson died and House was in the hospital so long … I remember Billy took over his care … exclusively. Only man I ever knew besides Dr. Wilson that House couldn't intimidate. I lost track of him after House died."

Chase chewed his thumb, thinking.

Dr. Strange kept silent, but played his scrutiny back and forth between them as they thought about the problem he had brought before them. Puzzle indeed.

Foreman paced the office, alternately pulling at his silver-streaked beard, and studying the walls beyond the doors … into the hospital lobby … and staring through the windows behind the big desk. Thinking.

The media vans were still parked in the visitors' area with their engines running, A/Cs turned up, no doubt.

"I didn't know Billy Travis even _had_ a brother! When House died, Travis left here … moved out west somewhere. He was in bad shape for a while. We never heard from him again. He and his brother were … where? Michigan? And they named a research facility for Gregory House? That's damned peculiar.

"Chase, did you ever hear of the place?"

Robert shook his head. "No. Never. Except that I heard House was somewhere getting treatment for his bum leg when he died suddenly. That's all I ever knew about it. I think somebody mentioned once that all his belongings were sent to an aunt somewhere in Ohio … or maybe Pennsylvania. I forget."

They both looked to Strange once more, showing blank faces, as puzzled as he appeared to be. Except that they were both in opposition with his dislike of puzzles. They had been trained well. They loved them!

"We should meet with these guys then, right?" Chase said, suddenly interested. "Talk

to Bill Travis again and at least listen to what the two of them have to say."

Dr. Strange nodded, already turning to other matters, having delegated the authority to underlings, freeing himself to attend a budget meeting and disappear into the woodwork as he'd been asked to do.

Activity outside the big window drew the three men's attention beyond it to the parking lot. Bright slivers of sunlight glinted off the pristine paint and bold strips of chrome from a big white solar-powered Navigator, and penetrated the entire front office with flashes of brilliance. The vehicle in question pulled up even with the wheelchair ramp outside.

The huge SUV was flanked with, and then surrounded by, another line of vehicles that had followed it from local TV and radio stations. The four vans waiting in the visitors' lot shut down their power plants and burst fourth with men and women on the run toward the Navigator.

Chase and Foreman looked at each other. "What the hell?"

Only Dr. Strange crunched his face in understanding. There went his budget meeting and his try for anonymity. "I believe," he said in resigned fashion, "that the Travis Brothers have just arrived with their visitor."

As they moved from the office to the lobby, and then through a gathering crowd of patients and employees to watch, the near side of the Navigator slid open and a wheelchair ramp descended slowly. There was an elderly man in it, hunched forward. Silver hair, thick silver beard and mustache. He wore glasses perched low on his nose, and he was so thin that his clothing hung on him like a sheet on a Halloween ghost.

The front doors of the SUV opened at that moment, and two tall dark-skinned men in sports jackets and jeans got out of either side. They both hurried around to the wheelchair and its occupant.

Surprisingly, the vehicle's opposite back door opened immediately after, and a very attractive tall, strawberry-blonde young woman in jeans and a white blouse, also emerged. She hurried around to where the elderly man sat. The woman knelt at his flank protectively as the big wheelchair touched down. Its occupant kicked the footrests aside and struggled to rise.

Just inside the lobby doors, Foreman and Chase were staring at one another in something akin to astonishment and disbelief.

"OH! MY GOD!"

"What is going on?" Strange was asking. He wasn't a very good actor.

But the men with him were no longer listening. They were making tracks out the front doors and running down the ramp.

The man in the wheelchair was getting to his feet now. He was wearing denims. He had black and red and yellow sneakers on his feet, the right one fitted with the thinnest of 'not-titanium' braces extending the length of his leg. A thick black cane suddenly appeared in his right hand. Faded yellow and orange flames raced up its shaft ...

_Makes me look like I'm goin' fast!_

Media people were forming a crowd around them now. Gathered and descending and buzzing like a swarm of bees. But they found themselves held at bay by two towering protective forces with their arms stretched out parallel, like battering rams. "You get anywhere near him, and I'll break your arm!" One of them said. And the media crowd, with their cameras and their microphones, fell back a few paces in astonishment.

The young woman, face grim and determined, flanked the old guy's side like a body-guard Jack Russell Terrier.

Chase and Foreman … and a gathering throng of fellow employees and patients and reporters … and the hospital's straight-faced administrator … stood staring at the assemblage at the bottom of the ramp with mouths open, smiling like fools, a little "burny" about the eyes. Most of them not knowing who this was … only realizing that he was important in some mysterious way.

The old guy looked up at them. Spotted Chase and Foreman. Pointed his cane and grinned like an evil troll.

"Been awhile!" Gregory House said in that oh-so-sarcastic voice.

The Prodigal Son … the one who used to be dead …

Had come home …

#

39


	50. Chapter 50

"Whisper of the Wind"

Chapter 50

"Setting the Woods On Fire"

Late August 2025

Gregory House:

I listen to the clamor. I enjoy their discomfort, their disbelief. I relish it. Bask in it. Some of them remember me!

I walk carefully up the ramp, the Travis boys flanking me on both sides. Gresham is right behind me, her fingers brushing along my shoulder every few steps.

Inside the cavern of my own head, I fight the obligation of having to be so closely guarded. But I know it is necessary. The old warhorse is on his last legs. I will not allow the weakness to brand me … not at this final accounting. I have come here to speak a truth, set the record straight, and nothing must deter me.

I know Whitney Travis called every TV station and newspaper within a hundred-mile radius of Princeton. He knew the stringers and the wire services would pick up on it, and soon it would be all up and down the East Coast, maybe National:

"_Gregory House, New Jersey Diagnostician, believed dead since 2009, Found Alive! Will visit Princeton-Plainsboro Hospital today to resolve the mystery of Dr. James Wilson."_

Well, most of that is from my overblown imagination … but what the hell? I was right! The story is still alive, even after all these years, but I have finally learned how to be aggressively conservative. Haw haw.

Eager fools with klieg lights and hooded microphones bow open their ranks before me like the Red Sea, and fall back again when I don't break the silence. I don't yet have the stamina to speak to any of them. I can't breathe and talk too! Inside … after I have a chance to calm my racing heart … then …

They regroup and reform behind me, closing in again like wash water waiting to escape down a drain, poised with their microphones extended, lest a single utterance be missed.

Don't they realize it's _me_ that's circling the drain?

I struggle on … and it is a major undertaking. I finally make it to the top of the damn ramp, pause and turn to face them.

Foreman and Chase have not moved from the spot where their shoes seem to have been glued to the pavement. I look into their familiar faces and hold their gaze without looking away. They're older now, and those faces are lined with the burdens of life. I feel an inner warmth I dare not let show. Not yet.

I raise my face to the point where I can look through the bottoms of my bifocals and pause to study these two men I have not seen for nearly seventeen years … or eighteen years. Or twenty …whatever.

They are established in their professions and exude confidence. Foreman has strands of white running through his beard and through the black hair he has finally allowed to grow back over that shiny skull. The added maturity serves him well. His eyes meet mine sternly, but with a trace of the humor he has used to his advantage to 'get' me many times in the past.

Chase is still a wombat at heart. There are laugh lines at his eyes, and their depths are warm with wonder. He's 'wondering' what the fuck I'm trying to pull … 'wondering' if it's really me. I can readily understand his consternation. Chase has the bearing of a physician of noble repute. There is no one he needs to impress, and it shows. I feel good about that. Perhaps I had some part in its making.

"House!"

Their voices blend together saying my name, and it makes me smile with sarcastic glee. Chagrinned, they extend their hands to clasp mine, and I have to shift the damned cane to accommodate. I make a snarky, put-upon face as I do so, and then grin at the way the past comes tumbling back. They are shit-faced, believing they may have caused me pain. Their eyes apologize in the old manner, and my grin turns to laughter. It is fucking good to be home … but I'll never tell them that!

"I rose from the dead for _this?"_

Around us, the crowd is gathering like a desert storm. I had caught my breath, but I was now hurting from the pull of the ramp. I'm shaky. My leg is trembling badly from the hip down. I need to sit somewhere, and quickly. Already, Gresham is nervous, chomping at the bit.

"Hit the sensor!" She keeps telling me. "Leather … hit the sensor!"

Attached to my left earlobe and invisible to the world is the tiny electronic probe I had finally requested from Whit and the little green men. To make the pain go away temporarily, all I have to do is squeeze it between thumb and forefinger. I do so, and a quick charge of electrical energy hits my nervous system like a bolt of lightning. Whit and the kids' latest tech innovation.

The pain diminishes, but so does most of the control of my right leg. As I start to go down, a straight-backed chair from the nurses' station is thrust roughly beneath my butt, and my shoulders are pulled back against the backrest.

I wilt downward with a groan of relief, rubbing some feeling back into my leg, turning around to see who the benevolent soul might be. I have fleeting thoughts of a tiny man dragging a dining room chair in my direction …

But he's tall. Skinny as a clothesline pole. And bland. His head is shaped like a sugar bowl with a pale yellow lid, and he towers over me like a Mercury vapor streetlight. I have a worm's-eye view of nostrils opening directly over me like umbrellas: the usual method of trying to contain a smile …

"Are you all right, Dr. House?"

I crane my neck upward to get a better look, hoping that a more normal perspective will grant the man a physical appearance not so much out of a comic book. Not happening. And somehow his homely face and pale eyes look strangely familiar. My brain goes into "diagnostic" mode and I get the feeling that the man can even hear the little wheels turning inside my skull. He doesn't know me. How does he know who I am? Foreman and Chase had no time to fill him in …

Someone runs up with the damn wheelchair from the curb below, and I feel the Travis boys lift me like a sack of grain and settle me into it. I take a deep breath, ready to protest.

"I'm fine!"

But Gresham is right at my ear like a pesky bumblebee. "Everybody knows you're not!" She says. "Right now you need to listen for a change."

I answer Ichabod Crane first. "I'm really fine," I repeat. "Thank you, Mr. … ?"

"Strange," he answers with a perfectly straight face. "Dr. Luther Strange. I'm the hospital's administrator."

I'm only half listening. My mind is already superimposing Lisa Cuddy's image overtop of his. Lousy fit. He has no cleavage! Keeping a straight face myself while running one-liners through my head is taking all the self-control I can muster. Flaring nostrils prevail everywhere. I nod briefly, letting the action pass for acknowledgment. The muscles around my mouth are screaming for permission to grin, but I hold them in tight control. Gresham has taken the nod as consent for her warning also. For the moment, the battle is stayed. Peace reigns.

Around us crowds are vocal and ballooning. Whit's fault. The word is out. If people don't quit clogging the parking lot with cars and bodies, someone will have to call the police to clear them out before they endanger the workings of the hospital. Humpfh! Back here ten minutes, and already I'm in 'doctor mode'.

I look over to where Whit and Billy are standing, a little apart from the crowd now. They are shoulder-to-shoulder like comic bookends, heads together, enjoying some private joke that I'm not privy to. Whit catches my eye and winks. A slight sideways thrust of his head indicating Dr. Strange, still standing protectively behind my wheelchair. Whit's grin is getting wider, and I'm wondering what the hell he's trying to tell me.

I turn in the chair again and look up. Dr. Strange looks down at me benevolently. The angle of his face and body are a little different this time. He has turned the other profile. Suddenly the clouds in my brain lift and scud away.

_OH SHIT!_

My mouth is open, my eyes wide and Gresham, at my side, looks half pissed and half thunderstruck. Billy and Whit stand there laughing. Foreman and Chase, hanging back at the fringe of the crowd, don't know what the hell to think.

Strange looks slightly amused, but I know he won't laugh. It is not in his makeup. I study him for a moment, and see an age-old wisdom far beyond belief. He doesn't last long at any position around here, but he's certainly learned to speak our languages like a native. Probably every language in the freakin' universe! He's well traveled.

Somehow this is funny as hell. I look at him again, and picture him much shorter in stature. With no clothes on! His stark homeliness of face and physique vanishes in my eyes. Just like Uzal's did.

Just like any ugly man who isn't ugly anymore after he has become your friend …

_BOAM!_

I look back to Billy and Whit. Their heads nod slowly up and down. They know I know. And I know they've known all along …

"'_Taint funny, Magee!"_

Gresham:

I'm tired already, and the day has barely begun.

Folks from the media were allowed to talk to Leather a while ago. Briefly. He keeps up a bold front, but I know he is wiped out. He has no stamina remaining. He is fragile, frail, weak and in pain. It will soon come to the point where it can't be controlled any longer. Not by the antibiotic wash he has had clamped to the small of his back for two weeks now, not the tiny sensor attached to the underside of his earlobe. It will simply be over.

He told the news people that he would speak to them late this afternoon … in the auditorium. He said there are some things he wants to come clean about. Explain why he hid from the world all those years. He told them he was going to die soon, and he wanted to "go down in flames while the angels sang ..."

I don't know what the reporters thought about that. Some snickered, some frowned. All they're interested in is learning something juicy and scandalous about Dr. Wilson.

Even when staring death in the face, Leather has to snark people off with sarcasm.

Good for him!

He's finally resting now. He refused to occupy a hospital bed in a hospital room. "I'm _dying, _fer chrissake … not sick!" He kept insisting.

So Dr. Foreman set up a cot in his office and Leather condescended, grudgingly, to occupy it.

I sat beside him and took his readings while he glared at me in that way he has that assures him he's intimidated the shit out of me. I just smiled at him and kissed his cheek. I had caught onto all his little scams some time ago. I continued to smooth his hair away from his forehead and caress his temples lightly until he finally drifted into sleep.

Then I straightened. Met the eyes of my hosts.

Across the room, Dr. Foreman sat in his desk chair and Dr. Chase hitched himself up on one side of the desk. Both of them were very interested, but neither said a word. I got the distinct impression they were waiting for me to say something first, and that they were not at all surprised by what they had just seen.

"He's dying," I said.

"Yeah, we figured that," Foreman admitted. "Looks like multiple organ failure. How long does he have?"

"His doctors say Christmastime. He's not eligible for transplant." I could feel tears threatening, burning behind my eyes and ready to spill over.

"You love him, don't you?"

"Yes. I do. From the day I met him. He did his best to get rid of me, but I guess I'm as stubborn as he is. After awhile he kind of got used to me. I worked for him. And I wore him down. I finished my first year of med school last June, but didn't sign up for the second year. He needs me."

"Yes, I can see that," Dr. Chase said softly. "Will you finish your studies and get your M. D. after … ?"

"Yes. He insists. It was because of him … and Dr. Wilson … that I wanted to be a doctor in the first place."

I told them the story, the way he'd hidden behind "Leather" and how he'd built himself a whole new life. And how I kept putting two and two together until I figured out who he really was … and how angry he was when he discovered that I knew. But I did not tell them the things which were Leather's, exclusively, to tell.

I told them about all those years ago when House and Wilson had treated my mother, and about my schoolgirl crush, and the strange way things worked out from there.

"That's … extraordinary." Chase said. His dark blue eyes looked at me with fascination, and I wondered if he quite believed anything I'd told them at all.

After a time the two doctors left together, giving Leather and me some privacy and finding things to occupy themselves elsewhere.

I pulled Dr. Foreman's desk chair over and sat down next to the cot, watching him sleep.

His breaths were shallow and irregular, and I adjusted his meds until they leveled out. I leaned forward in the chair until I could lay my head beside his on the pillow. I fell asleep that way for a while, with my fingers tangled in his hair.

He woke at five, and so, woke me.

Billy and Whit were at the door, saying that the auditorium was set up and ready for the talk that Leather wished to give.

I helped him shower, changed his meds, adjusted the spidery brace and attached it to his shoe. I helped him get dressed in that familiar blue-jeans-tee-shirt-dress-shirt-sports- jacket combo that he said he'd worn for work all those years.

When we were finished, I stood back and grinned at him, and he stood there with that "look" that told me he had put up with just about all the "foo-foo" he could stand.

"Are you _through??"_

I nodded, giggling. When dressed in layers with his beard trimmed, hair combed, cuffs actually buttoned … he looked almost healthy. I kissed him on the lips and the ice in his eyes melted like ice cream in Miami Beach …

It was time.

Leather and

Gregory House:

She was on me. Like stink on shit, like white on rice. Her fingers were light as feathers, and I felt loved for one of the few times in my life. I could not yell at her or make a stink because this beautiful child had taken leave of her senses and fallen for a miserable old ass like me. She has given up an entire year of schooling to be at my side when I take my last breath. What greater love is there in this world than that?

I don't deserve it. And I don't know how to handle it.

I would _not_ … repeat _not _… ride across that stage in a wheelchair. I would use my cane, and I would create an appearance of confidence and strength. There would be a stool behind the podium, and I would be all right.

Billy and Whit showed up at Foreman's office to get me into the wheelchair and take me downstairs. Behind them, strange Dr. Strange stood at military attention, hands behind his back. I figured he knew by now that I knew what he was. He remained very sober and very aloof. Our eyes met for a moment, and he nodded briefly. I nodded briefly back.

On the elevator, all we heard was the hum of the mechanism, and when it stopped, the door opened down the hallway near the auditorium.

In front of us was the buzz of the crowd. Evidently the place was full. I looked around me and felt the touch of Gresham's fingers near my face. Always there. Billy and Whit and Strange stood a little back.

_I'm fine, dammit!_

At the edge of the backstage curtain, Chase and Foreman stood together with a group of younger doctors that included Kuttner and Taub, and some others I didn't know.

"Knock 'em cold, House!" It was Foreman, and he was smiling like an old friend. Jesus! Maybe he was.

I kicked the footrests aside and prepared to stand.

_Swan song, House … do it right!_

I straightened, got my cane under me. I took a deep breath …

And took the first step.

#

46


	51. Chapter 51

"Whisper of the Wind"

Chapter 51

"So Long, and Thanks for all the One-Liners!"

August 2025

Gregory House:

I walk out across the stage with as normal a gait as possible. That's difficult to do, so I move slowly and look around as I walk, placing the cane carefully and craning my neck like someone who's new here and looking over the lay of the land.

I am always amazed somehow that buildings such as this one never change. Those who move in and out its portals whither and grow old. But the faded wood of this floor still has multiple layers of varnish on it, each coat brushed right over the one below. The blemishes and shallow indentations beneath my feet from casters and rollers and heavy things dragging, are as familiar and as similar now as they were the first time I trod them.

I'm thinking: "Oh yeah … I forgot about those." And I had. But I don't know why. They're as recognizable as the empty space between my two back teeth.

The portable storage cabinet in the middle of the stage is the same. The PPTH logo is a little faded, but it's there. The curtain I passed through is the color of mustard. The lectern is the same one I remember from eons ago. The green chalkboard still has obscure chicken scratch on it. The big whiteboard … the same. The writing on its flipside is probably mine from the last century. This makes me smile a little, but I don't go over to check.

_Actually, I didn't expect the feeling of nostalgia to hit me this hard when I finally stepped beyond the people who wait for me in the wings. _

_During my tenure here about a hundred years ago, or so it seems, I did a few lectures from this stage. Yelled into the audience of wanna-be newbies, who all reared back wide-eyed from my angry voice, and wondered self-righteously why I screamed at them for just walking in here …_

_I had to get their attention, right? Conceited little bastards. Their shit didn't stink, they thought. They were _**Doctors!**

_First-year medical students … Jesus! Did Gresham seem like such a baby to her instructors? Probably._

The lights onstage are a little brighter than they are in the gallery. If I look out over the rims of my glasses, I can see those ugly black plastic seats filled with the expectant, the grown-up self-righteous, the skeptics and the morbidly curious.

_I can see the slight rise at the rear of the gallery floor because it is filled with dim shadows from the old sconces on the bland walls. I hear the shuffling of restless feet on the floor, and hard-soled street shoes knocking against the wrought-iron bases of the rows of seating._

_I hear whisperings and throat clearings and coughs of impatience, and I take my time acknowledging them. I hear the clinks and clanks and rattles of their cameras and mike stands and Zai-Zos and pocket-pads as they prepare for their fifteen minutes of fame and their possible Pulitzer Prizes … which aint gonna happen. _

_My smile widens. _

_I'm not telling them about the little green men … who aren't all little … and aren't all green … and aren't all men …_

_They have no clue what I'm about to say. I know what they want to hear, but I take a perverse delight in my plans to not say any of that. What I'm going to tell them … is the truth. Up to a point. They probably won't like it much. _

_I approach the stool behind the lectern. The old black, wheeled chair is gone._

_Aha! This one is different. New! _

_Somebody must have run out somewhere and bought it this afternoon! It is deep and plush. It has upholstered arms and back. I can hitch my leg up. Easy for an old cripple to sit down, get comfortable and look out over the crowd. "Check the peanut gallery", so to speak._

_My leg and my stamina might even last until I'm finished talking and they get their chance to bombard me with dumb questions._

"Good evening.

"For those of the few who don't know who I am by now … my name is Dr. Gregory House. Late, of Princeton, New Jersey, and late of this hospital. I was then … and am now … licensed in Nephrology and Infectious Diseases. I was otherwise known in medical circles as a 'lowly infectious disease guy' … and a total bastard.

"That last, by the way, is honorary.

"But that's neither here nor there, and that's not what you came here to find out about, is it? You came to find out about Jimmy Wilson and a whole lot of juicy scandal. You will soon see there is little to tell of scandal.

"Some things I can be up front about, and some things I can't. Others, I just simply _won't! _ I'm already facing a death sentence, so nothing intimidates me.

"Before we even get started, let me say that if you interrupt or shout questions or distract me, I will immediately shut up, turn around, and leave. And that will be it.

"I'll give you time for questions afterward, and you need to be satisfied with that. Don't press me for more than I can talk about if I tell you I can't talk about it.

"Those of you who were expecting to hear a tale of woe or a litany of heroic misery, have come to the wrong place. I don't have a bunch of pathetic platitudes full of regrets and politically correct bullshit. Everything I did all these years ago were done for the benefit of one person. Me!

"For the record, it was all Dr. Wilson's idea. He decided to … 'not die' … first. His loving family shunted him around from hospice to hospice, then ran out on him when he got to be 'inconvenient', and had him declared legally dead.

"Guess what, folks. He wasn't! But he couldn't tell anybody. And I decided it was nobody's business, since it wouldn't make any difference.

"He is certainly dead now … but he wasn't then. He gave me the idea and I decided to 'not die' also. It worked out well for both of us for a long time."

I hear shifting and rustling in the audience as soon as I mention the name, 'Wilson', and 'not dead'. Nervous murmurs and twitters let me know I was right in keeping Jimmy isolated and out of the public eye. Out of sight, out of mind. They thought he'd died at the time of the accident, or at the least, a few weeks later. I was also right that it's indeed James Wilson they're interested in finding out about. They want to see if there is a "P. S." to the story. They don't have a clue about the rest …

They didn't do their jobs back then; not to the extent that they should have, anyhow, and I think they're pissed. Not at themselves. At me. Because I'm the only one left to blame. They didn't find what they were looking for seventeen years ago, and I'm the bad guy … even if they thought I was dead too when they got around to it. I know something they don't … and that stuff galls hell out of the media.

C'est la vie.

"Also for the record … any murder investigation you may be wondering about … never happened."

It got so quiet, so fast, I thought someone had turned off the sound. Their ears were perked up and they were listening hard.

"It was a lie. No murder. No investigation. Total crap. I made it up."

There is buzzing now, and it gets louder. They think I'm bullshitting them, or that I'm losing the rest of the marbles that I have left. Glad I warned them to keep their traps shut until I got finished …

"Simmer down!"

Silence is golden.

"There were two New York police cars following us in 2008. They were under orders to question Dr. Wilson on some things from the day before. Wilson saw them in the rear view mirror … I saw them in the side view. I had the chance to throw a monkey wrench into the machinery, and I took it.

"Wilson had been harassed enough. His hand was hurting him from what happened at the hotel. He was exhausted, half sick … and he had to do all the driving because I was incapacitated. I sent a micro-message through the cops' CPO Database that told them to abort the case and turn back.

"But by then it was too late … the plane hit and shot hell out of everything. The message didn't stay in their database, of course. It was programmed to fade out after fifteen minutes … no residuals. They had to get us out of there because we were dying in my car.

"I have no idea what happened with the guy who blabbed to the police about Wilson and a murder. I didn't know then … and I don't care now. Dr. Wilson tried to save a life, not end one. He almost died too.

"I was there and I saw what happened. There was only one death … the guy with the gun. If he'd shot the man he was after, he would also have had to try to shoot his way out of there. Who knows how many more might have died …"

I'm seeing that Best Western Hotel again in brief moments of flashback. I'm flinching in sympathetic pain as I remember throwing myself out of the wheelchair to get to Wilson in time. I'm seeing my cane, that I'd tried to whack the guy's arm with, flying in slow motion, arcing over the broken mezzanine railing and following Darth Vader all the way down to his sudden stop on the lobby floor. Smashed face, broken neck. Instant bye-bye.

I was more concerned for my friend as we hauled him back over the edge by his sleeves and jacket tails, his face white as a sheet, the painful tear between his fingers flinging blood all over the floor.

God!

Suddenly I'm aware that I have stopped talking. The crowd is also aware that my brain is nowhere in that auditorium at that moment. I'm pulling in huge draughts of air …my mouth open, eyes wide. I stop and blink and look around.

At the periphery of the stage, near the steps to the next level, everyone I see … Chase, Foreman, the Travis brothers, Gresham, Dr. Strange … all poised to hurry to my assistance. I straighten on the stool and nod briefly.

Just a glitch in the space-time continuum. I'm back.

"Sorry. Got caught up in the moment there. As I was saying … Dr. Wilson might have died back in the hotel. But instead … thanks to the vagaries of life … he was transformed from a human being into a vegetable on the highway about twelve hours later. Give or take.

"Somebody lied about it … and let the world think he was dead. I wish now it had been me.

"After that, he sat in environmentally controlled rooms … in a parade of hospices … from June 8, 2008 to April 19 of this year … just staring off into the distance.

"Seventeen years is a long time to admire the wallpaper, wouldn't you say?"

My eyes burn, thinking about this friend. Counting up the lonely years since I've been able to speak to him by any normal means …thinking of the moment he died quietly in my arms. Fully cognizant.

They are stirring again, restlessly, knowing that the story they would take away from this meeting was not what they'd expected. No headlines six inches high about the man who cheated the world out of his death sentence by actually dying.

They're wondering what the hell am I trying to pull. Was I telling them a bold-faced lie and sitting here, privately laughing at them? I was, after all, smiling a little from time to time. If it were me, that's probably exactly what I would have thought.

Oh the irony! Nobody asked about the "strange" message I somehow sent to the cop cars, and why the investigation never followed through. I played that audience like violins … and they bought it. I knew they would. I was right.

I could feel the weight of their eyes turning toward me. They were starting to buzz among themselves, muttering in an undertone that didn't bode well for the upcoming question-and-answer period. They might be getting ready to knock my block off … but still … none of them seem to be curious about how I might have got 'hold of a Zai-Zo and transmitted a fade-out message to the cop cars … way back in 2008 …

"See what I mean? I knew you wouldn't be happy with anything I told you. I could have lied through my teeth and said what you wanted to hear. And then I'd never hear the end of it.

"So I simplify everything and tell you the short version. The truth … which you guys should have tracked down in the first place, a long time ago. You'd still be pissed off because you couldn't hound me for the rest of my life.

"Or maybe you could …

"Which is also damned ironic. 'Cause if you squint, you can see the end of my life from where you sit."

Ah Jimmy, dammit, here I am in the same hospital where we worked together for a million years; where I was the prick and you were the good guy, and they want to believe you were a murderer. How's that for justice? Damn you, you'd better be waiting for me when I get out of here. You owe me one. Big time!

"So there you have it, folks. Not what you were looking for, I'm sure. But that's how it was and that's how it has to stay … and I have no reason to be lying to anybody now.

"Any questions?"

I'm watching the house lights come up, and people are getting out of their seats; rattling, shuffling, quietly walking toward the stage where I'm still sitting, because I don't think I have the strength to stand up.

But there are no shouts, no shoving for position, and none of the hostility I thought I was hearing a couple of minutes ago.

What I had to say had taken no more than about a half hour. Now, were they going to lynch me? … or what?

But they're not hostile. They're coming onstage, one after another. Forming an expanding circle around the stool where I still sit, greeting my group of friends who are stepping out from behind the old mustard-colored curtains, a little leery about what's going on.

Gregory House, after all this time … has some real friends. At the very end of his life, maybe he's even earning a few more.

Some of the reporters are offering their hands to me. Offering to shake my hand.

Me. The Misanthrope of PPTH.

I'm staring.

When I look up, I see chagrin, embarrassment, humor.

Understanding. Acceptance. All around me.

I shake the hands proffered. And the hands after that.

And after that …

Ahh … Wilson! Just wait'll I tell ya …

#

53


	52. Chapter 52

"Whisper of the Wind"

Chapter 52

"When All is Said and Done"

Mid September 2025

Until End of Days …

Leather & Gresham:

Gresham:

As it turned out, that was the first and last public appearance made by Gregory House. His re-emergence as his own persona was short-lived.

After the question-and-answer period and the glad-handing and the commotion on the auditorium's stage, we had to excuse ourselves and him, to take him back to Foreman's office so he could rest. It was the last thing he wanted to do, but it was necessary. He was tired and pale, and he held himself on the big stool as though he hurt all over. His leg trembled and his hand went to it constantly. We made our apologies, got him settled in the wheelchair, and withdrew. He didn't like it much.

On the way back to Dr. Foreman's office, he passed out in the wheelchair and began to slide sideways. Whit was pushing; I was on the opposite side talking to Billy. Dr. Foreman and Dr. Chase were bringing up the rear. It was Dr. Strange who saw right away that something was very wrong.

For the life of me, I couldn't figure out why a hospital administrator who probably had many important things to attend to, would choose to remain with this little procession. Yet, he was still here long after the cameras and recorders had stilled and the bright lights and microphones had withdrawn.

The moment Leather fainted, Strange reached out and halted the wheelchair, bent down beside him, then lowered to his knees and lifted Leather's arms into his lap and placed his head carefully against the chair's backrest.

We all gathered to assist him. At least I did! My fingers stole across to Leather's arm, but something odd emanating from the air around me, told me not to press in any further. The same thing must have happened to Foreman and Chase. They seemed to freeze in place and did nothing more to assist in determining what was wrong …

Dr. Strange looked up, and one by one, scanned us. I saw his eyes meet the eyes of Billy and Whit, who nodded briefly, and then he did the same with me. I was imminently cool with that. He then placed both hands on either side of Leather's shoulders and pressed lightly.

After a moment he changed positions, laid one hand gently on the back of Leather's head and with the other, cupped his chin. He pressed again and held it for a moment. He looked up at Billy and Whit, and they nodded the second time.

Suddenly, Foreman and Chase were moving again, kneeling for a diagnostic, their stethoscopes appearing from nowhere … just as Leather took a deep breath and looked around in confusion.

"Did I just pass out?" He demanded.

I couldn't remember. I wracked my brain. Chase and Foreman didn't remember either. Whit and Billy simply shrugged. "If you did," Billy said, "it was only for a second. Do you feel all right, Boss?"

Leather nodded. "Yeah …"

Looking at his leg, I saw that it was calm. Quiet and relaxed. Had I dreamed it? Or had it not been spasming a few short minutes ago?

We halted in front of Foreman's office. Dr. Strange was talking to the men, while I, the medical student, remained with Leather at the side of his wheelchair. For a moment I was angry, feeling left out. But no! This wasn't about me. It was about him!

The decision was quickly made to leave for home immediately. Leather needed a familiar place, they said, a familiar location, a familiar environment.

In truth, it was the beginning of the end.

We all knew. We said our goodbyes to Dr. Strange and Dr. Foreman and Cr. Chase. It was awkward. Chase and Foreman had worked with Leather for years, and though they had often been at odds with him, they recognized his many contributions … and his undeniable genius.

Dr. Strange stood by. Very formal. Very polite. Detached. I didn't think very much about it … then.

When Leather left Princeton Plainsboro Teaching Hospital that night, it was on a gurney, hooked to narcotics and life support. Whit set the jet's course for Ypsilanti Airport, and we were off …

Gregg:

I'm not sure where I am at first.

It's warm, dim, quiet. I feel the pulse-ox on my finger, the Foley on my pecker, dragging at me like it's sucking a soda through a straw. There's a crosshatch of meds feeding into the back of my hand. What the hell? Where was I while all this was going on?

"Hey!"

My voice is scratchy. What was supposed to be a shout comes out more like sandpaper on glass. I swallow and clear my throat and try again.

"Hey! Where the hell is everybody?" The sensor behind my ear is gone.

That did it. People come out of the woodwork. Billy and Whit Travis, Gresham, two of the doctors from Whit's staff. Smiling sweetly like characters from a fairy tale when the princess awakens from the spell of the wicked witch …

And Uzal. No smile yet. Just big caring eyes.

Someone snaps on a diffused light beside the bed and I look around curiously. "Will somebody kindly tell me what the hell is going on?" I hold up my hands and arms, full of adhesive tape and tubes and needle pricks. "I look like a bad electrical connection."

Gresham is right beside me, stool pulled up so close that I can smell her breath. She must have been here quite some time!

"We thought we lost you," she says tearfully. "You went into cardiac arrest at Princeton Plainsboro …"

I know instantly that's not where we are now.

I look up at them, glaring. Drop both hands back onto the bed in exasperation. I seem to be feeling that emotion a lot lately.

"Do I look like I think we're still in New Jersey? This is the wrong group of morons ..."

Somebody snickers. I look down. It's Uzal. He's appreciating the snark. I hate to see him … or any of his kids … becoming Earth-acclimated. What a waste!

The little man walks up to me and touches my face, gently moving Gresham out of his way. I grin. "You better-feel now?" He asks me with a twinkle. I know he doesn't need the "pidgin" anymore, but it's almost a joke between us.

"I better-feel now."

So I sit still while the team doctors remove the tubes … the needles … the Foley … "_Aghhhhh!" _

… and the rest of the paraphernalia. They plump my pillows and help me to sit up and lean back.

"You see Stran?" Uzal asks me.

"Did I see what??"

"Like me." Uzal holds his hand above his head as far as he can reach. "Big! Up!"

Ahhhh …

He meant Dr. Strange, who had taken away my pain with his long thin fingers. "Yes. I saw 'Stran'. You know him?"

"Shipmate." I know he's joking. He smiles a little and steps back. "Good. You be sleeping now."

Uzal's hand touches me again … and damn him … I'm fading out ...

I hear Gresham sniffing beside me.

Damn her too!

Gresham:

All of us took turns sitting beside him through the night, and many nights after that. All through September and October.

It was moving into November, and turning colder. But it was warm inside the mansion and Leather never went out anymore. Once in awhile he was strong enough to get up and get dressed in a sweat suit. He liked the grey ones, the ones that looked like wet sand on a beach right after a storm. Made him look like a thin, hunched grey ghost.

Sometimes he used his cane, but usually it was the wheelchair. He didn't bitch about it much anymore; he just used it when he was too weak to walk. His bad leg had gradually straightened. His Achilles tendon has stretched to the point where he could place his leg out on the bed without pain and touch his heel flat to the floor. Too little, too late. He never mentioned it, but I knew he chalked it up to one more encounter with irony.

Christmas came around almost before we knew it, and one day … the week before the holiday … there came a visitor to the front desk of the mansion.

Billy Travis told me how he had felt when he first saw her:

The reception desk was busy, what with relatives and friends coming and going during the Christmas season. At first it was just her aura that drew his attention …

Billy was in the wide hallway talking to his brother and Bem. He felt a prickle at the back of his neck and he glanced toward the front desk. She was elegant and slender, close to sixty-five years old now, or a little more.

She wore high-heeled boots with fake fur at the tops, and a black coat with more fake fur at the collar. Her hair was piled artistically atop her head in a style that accentuated her long neck, narrow face, and the dark blue eyes. Spidery gold earrings dangled gracefully, close to her shoulders.

Billy drew a deep breath, stunned. He excused himself, and walked over. "Lisa?" He said only her given name because, to his embarrassment, he had forgotten her married name.

She turned and looked at him, a little confused, and Billy smiled. It seemed that the forgetting part was mutual. Besides, he was a lot older now. Both of them were.

Sometime during the long stretch of years that had passed them by unaware, he had shored off the cornrows and acquired a few extra pounds. His thick, wavy hair had accumulated more than its share of silver and white, and his scrubs had gone away long ago. He wore more formal clothing now: dark jeans and sports jacket.

"Billy," he said. "Billy Travis."

Her eyes widened. "Bill? Oh God … I didn't know you. You look wonderful."

They embraced. "So do you," he said softly. "It's been a long time."

"Yes it has."

They paused, a little uncomfortable. They both knew why she was here. The sorrow in their eyes confirmed it.

"How is he, Billy?" Asked Lisa Cuddy Rothberg.

"Not good," Billy Travis sighed. "Not good at all. He could leave us anytime now. He's never alone. We monitor him around the clock. I'm certain he will be happy to see you. He speaks of you often: 'If _Cuddy_ were here …' "

She smiled, but it didn't reach her eyes, and Billy understood.

They came up together. Whit and I were with him, talking to him as he slipped in and out of consciousness. When they entered the room, I knew who she was immediately.

I had been told stories about her no-nonsense manner many times over the past year and a half. I stood to greet them. So did Whit.

She appraised me for a moment and nodded to Whit as she stripped off her coat and moved to Leather's bedside with a sad smile on her face.

"I've heard about you, Gresham," she said softly. "What you have done for this man is nothing short of miraculous. I'm very sorry you couldn't have come along twenty-five years ago."

Incredulous, I mumbled a 'thank you', but she had already turned back toward Leather's side. _'House's side,' _I reminded myself. Her hand went to his face and cupped his cheek gently. "He doesn't have long, does he?"

"No …" I whispered. I could feel tears pushing into my eyes. I should have run out of tears a long time ago, but there was always a fresh supply waiting at the fringes. I had stopped apologizing for them.

Lisa Cuddy Rothberg straightened to her full height and looked down at the bed.

"House!"

The blue eyes popped open and immediately found her face. He gasped a deep breath as he oriented himself. His gaze slid downward out of long habit, and the 'look' morphed into that of a horny teenager. "The 'Girls' have gone a little south, Cuddy. You could use a boob job. Other than that, the old grey mare looks pretty good …" By the time he finished the sentence, he was out of breath.

She pretended not to notice. _Class!_ She did not patronize him. When she spoke, it was all about the truth. "That stuff you said to Becky Adler all those years ago turned out to be a lot of bull, didn't it? You _can_ die with dignity, House. I hear Jimmy Wilson did it. From what I'm seeing here, you're going to do it too.

"'Everybody lies' … isn't that what you used to say? Don't fool yourself. Your life has accounted for a lot. There are many good people walking around today who would not be … if not for you. You never lied about what you did best.

"You're a man of courage, House. The people who surround you now are proof of that."

The rest of us went away and left them alone then. He was in good hands. I did not have to look twice to know that she loved him. Had loved him forever. And he, her. It was a solid and comfortable realization.

I needed time to pull myself together, and I guessed the others did too.

I walked slowly down the hallway, alone by choice, trying to blank my mind and get a second wind.

At the junction of the two corridors, a small presence stepped away from the wall and barred me from going any further. "Miss …?"

It was Uzal. With pants on. There was an empty lounge a few doors down, and he wondered if we could speak privately … ?

"Of course." I followed him in, and we sat. My curiosity was peaked. I wondered what he wanted. _Thank you, Uzal_. _You might admit to me who you are sometime._

"Please," he said. "I must talk … you. Need your trust."

He seemed a little agitated. But the manner of broken speech that had always been a part of him whenever I'd encountered him was changing now. "Are you all right, Uzal?" I asked him.

"I'm good. But please … need talk to you about gift."

"What gift?"

"Dr. House … his gift to you. If you want it. It is important you consider _if_ you want gift, and … _when_ you want gift. I am here forever. He has entrusted his gift to me until you need it … want it. If not, it will go away. Not for anyone else."

I looked at him strangely, and he caught my confusion. Of course he did! So he explained further. "Dr. House die soon … but he leave behind part of himself. Part of his body that he trusts to me … for you … because he wants you to have something that is his. Gift from Dr. House … and _Boam."_

I smiled to myself. "So … that's what you call yourselves!" My enlightenment had come slowly … just as it had come slowly when I discovered Leather's real name. I wasn't really surprised this time. Somehow it made perfect sense that he would befriend these people. Gregory House was lousy at making friends for himself on Earth. So he made them elsewhere.

"Indeed. We … not from here. We from far away. As Dr. House says: '_faaaaar…'_ away."

I felt a little stupid. _How_ far away? Mars? Jupiter? Further than that? "Uzal … you're just making me feel dumb here." I was putting him on.

I heard a small snuffle and his face turned away from me. Was he _laughing?_ He was! I had never seen him all happy-faced like that before. He looked back at me bright-eyed.

"I explain more. My home is in sky. _Faaaaar …_ Dr. House call it 'fourth rock from the sun' … but he not say far enough."

"That's Mars … Oohhh … you're not from _Mars??"_

"No. Long time … more out."

I just looked at him. Gave him the 'Leather Glare'. Then I smiled, and he understood.

"Funny. Funny girl." He was smiling again. Grinning, actually. He knew the truth had penetrated.

I got serious. "You're Extra Terrestrial. And Dr. House's gift is … ?"

"Boy child.

"When you are ready. Do you desire it?"

"Oh yes. Ohhh … _yes …_"

After that day, it was only a matter of time, and I had a lot of serious thinking to do.

My grief at losing him would be softened a little by my anticipation of his gift.

I wondered what our son would look like …

Newspaper and television accounts of Gregory House's return from the dead, were not the blare of headlines we had been expecting. They were straight-forward and they quoted him accurately. Not loud, not a word of scandal. Whatever the reporters had taken from the intensity of Leather's account in the auditorium in Princeton had been positive … positive enough to earn him a new respect. It was about time. He was all about the truth. They had finally 'got it'.

I sat beside Leather on his bed, night after night, holding his hand, monitoring his body.

This particular night he was very weak. He asked me to retrieve a small box from his dresser. I went over and looked where he said, and recognized the little box that Jimmy had left to him along with the spinet piano when he had died last April.

I brought it over and climbed back up beside him.

"Open it." He used words sparingly now. His breathing was labored.

I lifted the lid and looked inside. "Ooh … 'Mister Peanut'." I had seen the tiny figure before, on his desk in his office at the university when I'd gone looking for him. I lifted it out and held it in the flat of my palm.

"Wilson's last gift to me," he said breathlessly. "Take care of it."

"I will, I promise."

Also in the box was the funny, snarky note Wilson had written to House … along with the tiny statue.

Beneath the note was a faded snapshot; a photograph of a family together in a back yard on a snowy day … obviously taken for a family Christmas card … Hanukah card … whatever. Mom, dad, three boys: James Wilson's family back during the happy times.

"Wilson … baby-faced one in the middle," Gregg said. "I swiped it from him … long time ago. Keep it forever?"

"Yes. Everything. Forever. Someday I'll have someone to show it all to." I felt as though I'd just been handed the world wrapped in ribbon.

"My … 'gift' … gonna keep it, huh?"

"Yes. Of course. As soon as I get my M. D., I'll come back for it."

"Gonna name him after me?"

"If you insist."

"Thanks."

Then he said something I never thought I'd hear coming out of his mouth: "I love you, Lynn Gresham. With my heart …"

"Oh Leather … I love you so …"

He died there, in my arms that night, his head on my shoulder and his fingers tangled in my hair. It was New Year's Eve.

I sat very still, waiting for his pilgrim spirit to leave his body and rise upward, away from his long corporeal entrapment …

… and soar …

… joining with Wilson at the plateau where they would continue forever into the "Somewhen".

It was over.

He would rest now … in a second plot behind the mansion in a plain pine box just like Wilson's … beside the man he had loved with silent devotion for all these years.

He would be remembered for his works of genius and for his quirky personality.

"Gregory House" to the world …

"Leather" to me.

And I was left behind to grieve … but with a bright future awaiting ...

#

62


	53. Chapter 53

"Whisper of the Wind"

Chapter 53 - Epilog

"Passages"

Mountain View - 2070

Gresham:

It's late. And I'm long-winded, I know.

These things had to be said. People need to know who he was, _what_ he was. They need to know about the legacy he left that caused an entire race of people to look upon humans as something other than selfish, grasping fools. He caused an entire alien race to actually like us!

Twelve years ago I asked the kids if they thought it would be appropriate to build a balcony up here on the roof … a "thinking place", if you will. Somewhere to come when a long, hard day is over, and just let all our cares drift off into the breeze.

They agreed. So now we have a balcony that follows the roofline all the way around the building, and blends in with the original architecture of the mansion. The walkway is gunmetal grey. So are the top and bottom railings. The spindles between are white, just like those that surround the front porch at ground level.

You can lean on the top rail and look out over the lay of the land all the way to East Lansing and beyond to the runway lights at the airport. If you keep walking around to the back, you can see the little grove where three carefully tended graves rest quietly under a canopy of green.

These are special. Gregory House, James Wilson and Whitney Travis are together down there. Jimmy is getting to know Whit, and he has House back at last. They are the ones who started it all, and we honor them. Time marches on, and there will be more of us out there one day, myself among them.

Mountain View has been expanded twice over the past thirty-five years, and its staff has expanded likewise. We now have a capacity of five hundred patients, most of whom are not here to die anymore. They are here to live. It takes a long time, this new recovery process, but they're doing it. They have crossed the invisible barrier from "vegetative state" to "minimally conscious" to "waking state" to "ambulatory and articulate". And they have a life again.

Without James Wilson … 'Whitey' … and the devotion of his friend Leather, the research would never have gone forward, would never have begun to gain favor in the first place.

Without Whit and Billy Travis … and Whit's crazy messing around with things that were dangerous beyond measure … we would not have Uzal and Naya and Bem and Stran and the rest of the kids chasing things down to find out what the hell was going on.

Comedy of errors?

Curiosity beyond all reason?

Divine intervention?

Probably all three. Who knows? But it's wonderful … and here I am in the middle of it.

Gregory House was responsible for getting me here, while at the same time, trying to figure out the quickest possible way to get rid of me!

Ah Leather … for all your wit, for all your sarcasm, and all your genius … because you couldn't quite squelch the love of the kid from Pennsylvania … you may have saved the whole damn world from itself!

We still don't know much about the Boam. The Boam keep a very low profile. Maybe someday they can figure out how to completely stop global warming. They're trying. The same way they figured out how to run cars on compressed air and take us on our first journey to the "fourth rock from the sun".

But they know all about us! They like us, and we can't figure out why … because very few of us even like each other!

I received my M. D. in record time and went on to do my internship and residency. My parents died years later and left the farm to me. I sold it to Penn State and used the money for the Mountain View expansions, and invested the rest. I will be amply provided for forever. Even if I hadn't had my long life in medicine as reward enough.

In 2034 I returned to Mountain View to see Uzal. We had a long-standing agreement. When he asked me whether I would like to be the mother of Leather's boy-child, I was so happy I cried.

"The Gift!"

_Gregory Leather Gresham-House_ was born in the spring of 2035 and has been my greatest joy. He was a tall, straw-headed kid with an inquisitive bent and an eye for detail. He is now a strapping chestnut-haired, blue-eyed handsome man, who finished college with honors and works beside the "little green men" in the laboratories.

Gregg Junior is adored by staff and patients alike. He plays a mean piano, and has a sarcastic streak that would make his father laugh out loud with snarky pride.

When Whit Travis died of natural causes ten years ago, I took over as director of this place. I work with the patients and their families, and am constantly amazed to see comatose people wake from their trauma and gradually return to their former lives.

It is an age of miracles … and The Boam. I only wish these wonders had been in time for James Wilson. It might have made such a difference in Leather's life. And mine.

Well, maybe not …

Realizations like this assure me that the avenues of destiny are better left un-messed around with!

Billy Travis will probably retire soon. He's an old man now, but he still keeps his hand in around the floors, and everyone loves him. He and Shirley Appel and Jeremy Elton remain devoted to the patients and the staff, and they are morale boosters and tall-tale tellers and good-will ambassadors. Ask anyone.

Funny thing … when I finished out my year off after Leather died, I decided to return to our work in the Spider Banks. I still needed to pay for my education and I had left much undone, and a lot of history still to be retrieved and catalogued.

During the second year back, I came across a heavy, dusty box full of research notes and odd lab papers, all crammed together in sloppy notebooks with lollipop wrappers and gum wrappers for bookmarks. Chewed pencils, dried-up pens, odd coins, rotted rubber bands and rusty paper clips. Nothing was in order or dated or identified in any way, except for a scribbled "GH" at the top corners of a looseleaf sheet here and there.

The writing was precise and accurate, the research meticulous. I gasped when I realized they were Leather's. So I sorted them, page by page, reading each one so I could keep them straight and attach page numbers. His work was brilliant. Some of it was so far beyond my ken that I knew I had to turn it over to someone.

I gave it to Uzal. Sneaked it out of the Spider Banks and took it to the little green men.

They would know how best to use it.

Enough said.

Now I stand at the culmination of my career. I think back to my childhood and remember my schoolgirl crush and the two doctors who captured my heart so long ago.

There is not a day goes by that I don't miss him. Not a day that I don't close my eyes and think of that moment when I first laid eyes on the man with the smoky eyes. I have a talented and handsome son and many friends, and I have been blessed beyond all reason.

So there is it … my story.

And yet …

Leather has been gone from me almost forty-four years now, but during all this time he has been at my side from time to time like a teasing shadow … and I think often of the way he described Wilson as the ghost who haunted _his_ side: the whisper of the wind.

It wasn't always easy, this path I chose to follow. But I knew no other path was possible, once I took the first step.

I've had to stand by a few times and watch some old friends die. But since death is a part of life, and we're all headed in the same general direction, it gets easier to face the inevitable as it draws closer. Looking back over the years, my career has been fulfilling and rewarding. It has been a delight of infinite surprises and infinite satisfaction.

I still see Billy Travis every day. Our friendship is like the trunk of an old tree that has grown over and around a stone buried deep in the Earth. I can still feel his regret deep in my bones that there could never be more between him and me. But he knows where my heart has always been, and he lives with it. We realize it is ancient emotion, left over from another day. Maybe that's why it still gets to me. It won't be long until I am of another day also.

Sometimes when I'm alone at night, after another long day is over, I wander up here to the balcony on the roof. I look over the lights of the city and say goodnight to the three heroes resting under the trembling canopy of leaves out back.

My eyes rise away from Earth's boundaries and I gaze into the grandeur of the stars. My heart takes a strange turn backward … to the Spider Banks, or to the little ugly handicap apartment in Ann Arbor.

I picture Leather and me, walking together slowly across the campus after work. I'm back in the days of my youth … and his wisdom … when the world offered endless possibilities and endless opportunity.

Then I drift back again, and suddenly I can feel the wind as it comes sweeping to gust about me; envelop me with invisible arms of fierce intensity. I'm drawn inexplicably toward its center … like a cloud caught in the eye of a hurricane … surrounded by turbulence, yet unharmed.

I'm certain of his presence nearby, and I can feel his tenderness and laughter gathering around me like a pair of strong, gentle arms about my shoulders. I experience the warmth of his smile and the jazz music of his voice.

Wispy clouds high above Earth form the face with the beard and the mustache and the beautiful eyes with their shaggy brows … and the snarky grin.

He is with me … and he is not.

"Gregory House" to eternity.

"Leather" to me.

Just like The Whisper of the Wind …

I don't have to see him to know he's there.

The End –

AUTHOR'S NOTE:

I can't begin to tell all of you who read and commented on this story, how I have loved communicating with you. I knew I was taking a chance by killing off the two characters we all love so much, but you stuck by and continued to the end. I thank you so very very much!

Bets;)

#

68


End file.
